Klaus von Beyme

Klaus von Beyme (born 1934 in Germany) is Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg.

Education

Klaus von Beyme studied political science, history and sociology at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Paris and as the first West German university student in Moscow after World War II.

Career

From 1967-1973 he was Professor for Political Science at the University of Tübingen. From 1973-1999 he was Professor for Political Science at the University of Heidelberg and from 1982-1985 he was President of the International Political Science Association. Major research fields are Comparative Politics and Political Theory. Visiting fellowships and professorships at Harvard, Stanford and Melbourne universities, and at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris, and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris.

Awards and Offices

Member of the Academia Europaea. Former Member of the Advisory Council of the Social Science Research Center (WZB), Berlin. From 1993 Member of the Advisory Council of the Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin). 1995 Honorary Member of Humboldt University Berlin. Since 1995 Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. 1998 University Medal of the University of Heidelberg. 2001 honorary doctorate of the University of Bern, Switzerland. 1983 to 1990 von Beyme was a member of the Research Council of the European University Institute, Florence. Von Beyme is widely regarded as one of the most important German political scientists of the 20th century (Klingemann/Falter 1998).

Books/Edited Volumes (Selection)

* "America As a Model: The Impact of American Democracy in the World", London: Palgrave Macmillan (1987)
* "Right Wing Extremism in Western Europe", Frank Cass Publishers (1988)
* "Systemwechsel in Osteuropa" (1994)
* "Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe", London: Palgrave Macmillan (1996)
* "Der Gesetzgeber: Der Bundestag als Entscheidungszentrum" (1997)
* "Die Kunst der Macht und die Gegenmacht der Kunst" (1998)
* "The Legislator: German Parliament as a Centre of Political Decision Making", Adershot: Ashgate (1998)
* "Die parlamentarische Demokratie" (1999)
* "Parliamentary Democracy. Democratization, Destabilization, Reconsolidation 1789-1999", Basingstoke: Macmillan (2000)
* "Parteien im Wandel" (2000), 2. edition, 2002
* "Politische Theorien im Zeitalter der Ideologien" (2002)
* "Das Zeitalter der Avantgarde. Kunst und Gesellschaft 1905-1955" (2005).

Articles

* "The German Constitutional Court in an Uneasy Triangle between Parliament, Government and the Federal Laender", In: Wojciech Sadurski (ed.): Constitutional Justice, East and West. Den Haag, Kluwer, 2002, 101-118.
* "Institutional Engineering and Transition to Democracy" In: Jan Zielonka (ed.): Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 3-24.
* "Elite Relations in Germany", German Politics, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 19-36.
* "Citizenship and the European Union", In: Klaus Eder/Bernhard Giesen (ed.): European Citizenship between National Legacies and Postnational Projects. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 61-85.
* "The Bundestag - Still the Centre of Decision-Making?", In: Helms, Ludger (ed.): Institutions and Institutional Change in the Federal Republic of Germany. Basingstoke, Macmillan: pp. 32-47.
* "Federalism in Russia", In: Ute Wachendorfer-Schmidt (ed.): Federalism and Political Performance. London, Routledge 2000, pp. 23-39.
* "Shifting national identities : the case of German history", National Identities, No. 1, 1999, pp. 39-52.
* "German political science: the state of the art", European Journal of Political Research 20 (3-4), 1991, 263–278.

References

* Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Jürgen W. Falter: 'Die deutsche Politikwissenschaft im Urteil der Fachvertreter', in: Michael Th. Greven (ed.): "Demokratie – eine Kultur des Westens? 20. Wissenschaftlicher Kongreß der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft", Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 1998.