Career and Influence
Stein Rokkan was born on the Lofoten archipelago in the far north of Norway and raised in the nearby town of Narvik. Originally educated as a philosopher, Rokkan collaborated in the 1940s and 1950s as the assistant of Arne Næss. Later on, his interest turned towards the study of politics, especially the formation of political parties and European nation-states. It was during this period that he collaborated with Seymour Martin Lipset, "Lipset and Rokkan" becoming a duo that would forever be remembered by students of political sociology. He is also known as a pioneer user of computer technology in the social sciences. He wrote on cleavage, comparative history, party systems and Catalan nationalism, among other topics.
Rokkan is the creator of a series of models for state and nation formations in Europe. He was president of the International Political Science Association from 1970 to 1973, president of UNESCO's International Social Science Council (ISSC) (1973-77), vice-president of the International Sociological Association from 1966 to 1970, and chairman (from 1970 to 1976) and co-founder of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research has been awarded by the ISSC, the ECPR and the University of Bergen in Rokkan's honour since 1981.
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