the political science of giovanni sartori

Abstract

This article reviews Giovanni Sartori’s contribution to contemporary political science. Sartori, who has just turned eighty, re-founded Italian political science and taught a generation of political scientists. He has made important contributions on democracy, party systems, and on political and constitutional engineering, and has written many significant methodologi- cal articles. Conceptual clarity, analytical rigour, methodological aware- ness, and interest in theory-building have allowed Sartori to become one of the most prominent political scientists of the 20th century.