Ninetieth Birthday of Fritz W. Scharpf
On February 12, 2025, Fritz W. Scharpf, Emeritus Director at the MPIfG, will celebrate his ninetieth birthday. One of the most renowned political scientists in Germany, Scharpf’s research on joint decision making and multi-level governance in the European Union is internationally regarded as groundbreaking. In particular, his distinction between input and output legitimacy has had a lasting impact on the debate on democratic legitimacy in the EU.
After studying law and political science in Tübingen, Freiburg, and Yale and completing his doctorate, Scharpf began his academic career in 1964 as assistant professor of law at Yale. He returned to Germany two years later to complete his habilitation and in 1968 became Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz. From 1973 to 1984 he was Director of the International Institute of Management and Administration at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. In 1986 he was appointed as the second director of the recently founded Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne. As director from 1986 to 2003, he played a key role in shaping the Institute’s development, first together with Renate Mayntz and from 1995 onwards together with Wolfgang Streeck.
The spectrum of Scharpf's research includes comparative studies on inflation, unemployment, and crisis policy in Western Europe, as well as analyses of the political economy of the welfare state under the conditions of globalization. He has devoted particular attention to European economic and monetary union. His interdisciplinary approaches and findings have found a wide audience not only in political science but also in economics, sociology, and law. The innovative nature of his work manifested itself in particular in the “actor-centered institutionalism” approach developed in close collaboration with Renate Mayntz, which places the interactions between institutional structures and the strategic actions of political actors at the center of the discussion.
Alongside his research, Scharpf has been actively engaged in the transfer of insights from political science into practice. As a member of reform commissions on state modernization, he was able to use his theoretical findings to make direct contributions to policy consultation on several occasions since the 1970s.
His international career has taken him to renowned institutions in Stanford, Florence and Paris as a visiting professor. Scharpf has received numerous awards for his research, including the Johan Skytte Prize (2000) for outstanding achievements in the field of political science. In 2004 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. Last year he received the first ever lifetime achievement award from the German Political Science Association (DVPW).
Following his retirement, Fritz W. Scharpf continues to be an active part of the academic community at the MPIfG to this day. On March 6 the Institute will honor his ninetieth birthday with a symposium discussing the epistemological foundations of the social sciences.
