Maurice Duverger, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Maurice Duverger

French academic

Date of Birth: 05-Jun-1917

Place of Birth: Angoulême, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

Date of Death: 17-Dec-2014

Profession: politician, jurist, political scientist, university teacher

Nationality: France

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Maurice Duverger (5 June 1917 – 16 December 2014) was a French jurist, sociologist, political scientist and politician born in Angoulême, Charente. Starting his career as a jurist at the University of Bordeaux, Duverger became more and more involved in political science and in 1948 founded one of the first faculties for political science in Bordeaux, France.
An emeritus professor of the Sorbonne and member of the FNSP, he has published many books and articles in newspapers, such as Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, El País, and especially Le Monde. Duverger studied the evolution of political systems and the institutions that operate in diverse countries, showing a preference for empirical methods of investigation rather than philosophical reasoning. He devised a theory which became known as Duverger's law, which identifies a correlation between a first-past-the-post election system and the formation of a two-party system. While analysing the political system of France, he coined the term semi-presidential system. From 1989 until 1994, he was a member of the Italian Communist Party, later the Democratic Party of the Left, in the European Parliament. In 1981 he was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
He died at the age of 97 on 16 December 2014.