Mearsheimer Profile; Chicago vs. Harvard

[JHS]

<p>There is a really interesting profile of controversial Chicago political science professor John Mearsheimer in the current Atlantic magazine. </p>

<p>[Why</a> John J. Mearsheimer Is Right (About Some Things) - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“Why John J. Mearsheimer Is Right (About Some Things) - The Atlantic”>Why John J. Mearsheimer Is Right (About Some Things) - The Atlantic)</p>

<p>The article is worth reading for its main topic (Mearsheimer’s approach to foreign policy), but it also includes this interesting bit on Mearsheimer’s view of the difference between Chicago and one of its better-known peers:</p>

<p>

After stints at the Brookings Institution and Harvard, he went to the University of Chicago in 1982, and has never left.</p>

<p>Whereas Harvard, at least in Mearsheimer’s telling, is inclined to be a “government-policy shop” with close ties to Washington, the University of Chicago comes closer to a “pure intellectual environment.” At Harvard, many students and faculty members alike are on the make, networking for that first, or next, position in government or the think-tank world. The environment is vaguely unfriendly to theories or bold ideas, Huntington being the grand exception that proves the rule. After all, social-science theories are gross simplifications of reality; even the most brilliant theories can be right, say, only 75 percent of the time. Critics unfailingly seize on any theory’s shortcomings, damaging reputations. So the truly ambitious tend to avoid constructing one.</p>

<p>The University of Chicago, set off the beaten path in a society dominated by bicoastal elites, explains Mearsheimer, has always attracted “oddballs” with theories: political scientists who, while deeply respected, are at the same time not truly embraced by the American academic power structure. These iconoclasts have included Hans Morgenthau, as well as Leo Strauss, another German Jewish refugee, whom some link with neoconservatism. Realists especially have been outsiders in a profession dominated by liberal internationalists and others to the left.

</p>

<p>Mearsheimer also describes the architectural style of his university office building as “East Germany circa the 1960s.”</p>

[ILoveUofC]

<p>I took more than a few classes with John Mearsheimer and Charles Lipson when I was an undergrad and I found both men to be extremely open and helpful to wide-eyed and bushy tailed college students. I was not a poli-sci/IR concentrate, but I found Mearsheimer’s lectures to be fascinating and his observations serve me well today every time I pick up a newspaper or watch the news.</p>

<p>Re: his latest controversial comments, they strike me as typical Mearsheimer in their non-conformist views and I wouldn’t read too much into them. Like the article above mentions, his role (and UChicago’s) is not to guide or determine policy but to take ideas and push them to the extreme. This may lead to some uncomfortable topics and controversial ideas, but that is what UChicago cultivates.</p>

[Cue7]

<p>I’ve said it before, but this article in the Atlantic highlights it - being the school that attracts the “oddball” theorists can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Chicago gains a reputation for producing and cultivating fearless academics and wonks, but, on the other hand, there are tangible real-world costs to this approach.</p>

<p>Case in point - I think few would contest that in terms of actual policy and presence in DC, Harvard grads far outweigh Chicago grads in number and significance. Chicago may produce the theory-factories (e.g. the Chicago School of Economics, Sociology, etc.), buts its more often than not the Harvard grads considering and implementing these theories.</p>

<p>Here’s hoping that in the upcoming decades, Chicago does a better job of producing not only the thinkers, but the doers as well.</p>

[truth123]

<p>This brings to mind two of my favorite recent newspaper headlines:</p>

<p>1) “Harvard, Yale, Stanford Produce Most Members of Congress”
2) “General Public Considers Most in Congress to be Fools and Knaves, Poll Shows”</p>

[Cue7]

<p>Truth123 - that may be true, but top schools need to produce both the thinkers and the doers (even if some of the doers may be “knaves”). Chicago has been woefully behind the other tippy top schools in this regard. </p>

<p>(The obama phenomenon being an outlier, of course. Also, its great that obama taught at chicago, but his educational roots - aka harvard law - are just more of the same in dc.)</p>

[truth123]

<p>@cue7</p>

<p>He’s taken quite a few UChicago people with him in various capacities…</p>

<p>Do you think the Public Policy School (Harris School) is changing things–getting more UChicago alums into government? (I haven’t really followed this…)</p>

[HST]

<p>Too some degree, but the Harris School seems to place much more value on research and analysis (‘thinking’) than policy practice or politics (‘doing’). As policy schools go, it is quite theoretical. They certainly place a good number of people in the federal government and agencies, but on the whole these are not the types who, as Mearsheimer put it, are constantly “on the make.” From what I have seen, there is a fair bit of institutional disdain for ‘politics’, which is certainly not true at places like the Kennedy School or Georgetown.</p>

[HST]

<p>This may be of interest:</p>

<p>[University</a> of Chicago creates new Institute of Politics | The University of Chicago](<a href=“Page Not Found | University of Chicago”>Page Not Found | University of Chicago)</p>

<p>Also, the Harris School has recently added former Mayor Daley and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to it roster (as visiting “fellows”, not teaching faculty)</p>