Morton A. Kaplan (May 9, 1921 – September 26, 2017) was Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. He was also President of the

Professors World Peace Academy The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church, is a new religious movement, whose members are called Unificationists, or " Moonies". It was officially founded on 1 May 1954 under the name Holy Sp ...

International; and Editor of the World&I magazine, published by the

Washington Times ''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...

Corporation, from its founding in 1986 until 2004. He attended

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

and Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1951. He has held fellowships from the

Center of International Studies The Center of International Studies (CIS) was a research center that was part of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton, New Jersey. It was founded in 1951 by six scholars who came to Princ ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

and from the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social and ...

. He was also a Carnegie Traveling Fellow. Kaplan has published extensively in the areas international relations and international politics. His many books include ''Science, Language and the Human Condition'', ''Law in a Democratic Society'', and ''System and Process in International Politics'' (1957), a seminal work in the scientific study of international relations. He was a critic of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

and of the policies of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. In 1979 he edited ''The Many Faces of Communism''. Kaplan introduced a new analytical tool to the study of international relations,

systems analysis Systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them". Another view sees system analysis as a problem-solving technique that ...

.Review of Morton Kaplan’s ''Justice, Human Nature, and Political Obligation''
Vincent Luizzi, ''The American Journal of Jurisprudence'', Vol. 22, 1977, pp. 202-208. His view contrasts with that of

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...

- that it might be possible to isolate some basic social and political rules; rather Kaplan's alternative theory of justice is his ''test in principle'', a kind of decision procedure for evaluating social, political, and moral choices, which attempts to circumvent the limitations of an egocentric or culturally narrow perspective while providing sufficient context to make a judgment. Kaplan used systems analysis to differentiate among the various types of international state systems: the "balance of power" system, the loose bipolar system, the tight bipolar system, the universal international system, the hierarchical international system, and the Unit Veto International System.Robert H. Jackson & Georg Sørensen (2007), ''Introduction to international relations'', Oxford University Press.
Kenneth E. Boulding and

Charles Kindleberger Charles Poor Kindleberger (October 12, 1910 – July 7, 2003) was an American economic historian and author of over 30 books. His 1978 book ''Manias, Panics, and Crashes'', about speculative stock market bubbles, was reprinted in 2000 after the ...

gave Kaplan's ''System and Process in International Politics'' negative reviews. Kindleberger argued that the book was a "must" read and that the primary contribution of the book was Kaplan's discussion of the international system and balance of power, but he argued that Kaplan's work did not lend itself to empirical testing, and that the application of game theory to politics and conflict was problematic.

References

External links

PWPA bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Morton 1921 births 2017 deaths University of Chicago faculty Columbia University alumni Unification Church and Judaism Temple University alumni Stanford University alumni