Jean Blondel

French political scientist (1929–2022)

Jean Blondel (26 October 1929 – 25 December 2022) was a French political scientist specialising in comparative politics. He was Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute in Florence, and visiting professor at the University of Siena.

Blondel graduated the Institut d'Études Politiques of Paris in 1953 and then attended St Antony's College at Oxford University from 1953 to 1955. After graduating with a B. Litt, he had returned to France for his military service and only then could conclude his studies on central and local government at Manchester University. Blondel became a lecturer at the University College of North Staffordshire (now Keele University) from 1958 to 1963, a fellow at Yale University in 1963 4 and then moved to the University of Essex in 1964, where he founded the Department of Government. He left Essex in 1984 and was appointed scholar of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 1984. In 1985, he became professor of political science at the European University Institute in Florence, a position he held until his retirement in 1994.

Blondel is particularly noted for the contributions he made to the theory of party systems, the comparative study of cabinets, and the relations between parties and governments. Latterly, he worked on the comparative approach to analysing presidentialism across the globe, with emphasis on the regions of Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet republics.

Blondel was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academia Europaea. In recognition of his work, the ECPR has since October 2003 awarded the annual Jean Blondel PhD Prize for the best thesis in politics nominated by a member institution in a given year. Blondel also held honorary doctorates from the Universities of Salford and Essex in the United Kingdom, Louvain la Neuve in Belgium, Turku in Finland, and Siena in Italy.

Voters, parties and leaders : the social fabric of British politics. Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1963. An Introduction to Comparative Government. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969. Comparative legislatures. Englewood Cliffs, N. J : Prentice Hall, 1973. Political parties. A genuine case for discontent?. London : Wildwood House, 1978. The Discipline Of Politics. London & Boston : Butterworths, 1981. Political leadership : towards a general analysis. London & Beverly Hills : SAGE, 1987. Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller Rommel (eds.) Cabinets in Western Europe Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1988. Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller Rommel (eds.) Governing together : the extent and limits of joint decision making in Western European cabinets. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1993. Blondel, Jean and Maurizio Cotta (eds.) Party and government : an inquiry into the relationship between governments and supporting parties in liberal democracies. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1996. Blondel, Jean, Richard Sinnott, and Palle Svensson People and Parliament in the European Union : participation, democracy, and legitimacy. Oxford, England : Clarendon Press, 1998. Blondel, Jean and Maurizio Cotta (eds.) The nature of party government : a comparative European perspective. New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000. Blondel, Jean and Ferdinand Müller Rommel (eds.) Cabinets in Eastern Europe Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2001. Blondel, Jean. The Presidential Republic. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.