Morton Kaplan

Who is Morton Kaplan?

Morton A. Kaplan was Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at the University of Chicago. He was also President of the Professors World Peace Academy International; and Editor of the World&I magazine, published by the Washington Times Corporation, from its founding in 1986 until 2004.

He attended Temple University and Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He has held fellowships from the Center of International Studies at Princeton University and from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He was also a Carnegie Traveling Fellow. Dr. 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, a seminal work in the scientific study of international relations. He was a critic of communism and of the policies of the Soviet Union. In 1979 he edited The Many Faces of Communism.

Kaplan introduced a new analytical tool to the study of international relations, systems analysis. His view contrasts with that of John Rawls - 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.