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Politics and the Life Sciences: Current Research Questions and Teaching Biopolitics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2015

Albert Somit  and
Steven A. Peterson
Albert Somit
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University
Steven A. Peterson
Affiliation:
Alfred University
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Extract

Biopolitics is the study of the relationship between our biological makeup and our political behavior. While this line of inquiry can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, the contemporary surge of interest dates from the middle 1960s. Among the major contributing factors then were—take your pick—James C. Davies' Human Nature in Politics (1963), a 1964 essay by Lynton K. Caldwell, and a panel chaired by Albert Somit at the Southern Political Science Association (1967). Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic growth of interest in “biopolitics,” as the area came to be known, to the point where some 900 works have now appeared (Peterson and Somit, in press).

A variety of indicators testify to the acceptance that biopolitics has since achieved within the discipline: formal recognition by the International Political Science Association (1972); biopolitical articles in our leading professional journals; books bearing the imprint of leading publishers; the regular inclusion of panels on biology and politics at regional, national, and international conferences; support from major foundations, such as the Rockefeller and Lilly Foundations; awards by NSF and NIA for biopolitical research; the establishment of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (1981) and its journal, Politics and the Life Sciences (1982) and, most recently, recognition by the American Political Science Association of biopolitics as an “organized subfield.”

Type
Resources for Teachers and Students
Information
The Political Science Teacher , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Spring 1989 , pp. 17 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1989

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Society for Political Psychology meeting, Secaucus, N.J., July, 1988. We wish to acknowledge useful comments on previous drafts of this paper by Joseph Losco and Gary Johnson.

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