BY BARBARA PALMER
Alexander L. George, the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International
Relations, Emeritus, internationally known for his pioneering work in
political psychology and foreign policy, died on Aug. 16 at the
University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle following a massive
stroke. George was 86.
"Many people consider Alex George to be the greatest scholar of
international relations of his generation," said Dr. David Hamburg,
president emeritus at Carnegie Corporation of New York and a former
chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at
Stanford.
A professor of political science at Stanford from 1968 to 1990,
George published seminal articles on the impact of cognitive beliefs on
an individual's political behavior and on the role of stress in
decision-making. He also developed methods of using case studies as a
basis for building theories of political behavior, especially in the
areas of Cold War foreign policy.
George bridged the two worlds of academia and policymakers, said
Hamburg, who met George in 1957 at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences, where both were fellows.
He was the among the first to lead behavioral scientists into
studying the "very painful and dangerous" issues of nuclear crisis
management during the Cold War era and to carry knowledge directly to
policy leaders, Hamburg said. George "focused a great deal of attention
on reducing nuclear danger," he added. "I regard him as a truly great
scholar and human being."
George was born in Chicago on May 31, 1920, and earned undergraduate
and graduate degrees at the University of Chicago, where he received his
doctorate in political science in 1958.
During World War II, George was a research analyst for the Federal
Communications Commission from 1942 to 1944 and served as a civil
affairs officer in post-war Germany from 1945 to 1948. He taught at the
University of Chicago and the American University in Washington, D.C.,
and from 1948 to 1968 was a specialist on the study of decision-making
and international relations at the RAND Corporation. George became
director of the social science department at RAND before joining the
Stanford faculty in 1968.
A prolific author, George came to prominence with the publication of his first book, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House (1956),
which he co-authored with his wife, Juliette L. George. Controversial
at the time of its publication, it is regarded as one of the best
psychological biographies ever written.
In 1994, a special issue of the journal Political Psychology
was dedicated to examining and honoring George's work. In the
publication, scholar Janice Gross Stein called George an "architect,
engineer and community-builder in political psychology" who had left an
"enduring blueprint for the study of the psychology of international
relations."
George's scholarship also has had a significant and continuing impact
on historical case-study methodology in political science, said Scott
Sagan, the co-director of the Center for International Security and
Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at
Stanford. George is co-author of the highly regarded Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (2005).
Sagan also noted George's substantive research contributions to
foreign policy research. His work has been "particularly important in
developing our understanding of deterrence and coercive diplomacy,"
Sagan wrote in an e-mail.
In 1975, George was awarded the Bancroft Prize for American History and Diplomacy for Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, which he co-authored with Richard Smoke. His 1993 book, Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, urges collaboration between the practitioners and scholars of politics.
After his retirement from Stanford, George was a distinguished fellow
at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., where he
was invited to discuss the role of regional conflicts in international
affairs alongside Nobel laureates Oscar Arias Sanchez, former president
of Costa Rica, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
George continued his scholarship and writing until a few months before his death. His latest work, On Foreign Policy: Unfinished Business (2006), reflects on his 60 years of scholarship and work on public policy.
Among the many honorary degrees and awards presented to George are
the MacArthur Prize, awarded in 1983, and the Johan Skytte Prize in
political science, awarded in Sweden in 1998.
The "most wonderful" award of all, however, was the National Academy
of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of
Nuclear War, given to George in 1997, said Juliette George. "His life's
work from beginning to end was to maintain the peace," she said.
George's legacy includes his enormous generosity to his students,
Hamburg said. "He was one of the most generous people I have ever
known."
"Alex George is a giant figure in the study of international
relations," Sagan said. "He will be missed, but his influence on future
generations of political scientists will live on."
Source: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/august23/obitgeorge-082306.html
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