The Duck of Minerva

Albert O. Hirschman (1915-2012)

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by Dan Nexon

11 December 2012, 2116 EST

If you haven’t heard yet, Albert O. Hirschman passed away today. Some good discussion at Crooked Timber, including a link to a terrific piece by Rajiv Sethi. Hirschman’s stature in the social sciences was of such magnitude that, while still alive, the Social Science Research Council named a lifetime achievement award after him.

I don’t have a great deal to add myself. I learned a tremendous amount from his works, including The Passions and the Interests and Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Perhaps I am getting on myself, but it seems like we’re gradually losing a group of scholars whose influence across the spectrum of social sciences is unlikely to be repeated in the future.

 

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

2 Comments

  1. Adrienne LeBas
    Adrienne LeBas on 11 December 2012 at 23.38 EST

    I agree, Dan. Hirschman was a kind of wide-ranging intellect that seems increasingly rare … but it’s also the accessibility and elegance of his writing, no? Just this semester, I got an email from an undergrad saying he was passing through Lincoln Tunnel and couldn’t help but think of Hirschman. It’s this: Hirschman influenced lots of disciplines but also trained normal folks to think in terms of exit & voice, the tunnel effect, the rhetorics of intransigence, etc. He pops up in the oddest places — magazine articles, policy discussions … I’ve even encountered a fairly good description of Exit, Voice & Loyalty on a Zimbabwean newspaper editorial page. What a wonderful use of a life.