Karl Deutsch

Karl Wolfgang Deutsch (21 July 1912 – 1 November 1992) was a social and political scientist from Prague. He was the Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard University. From 1977 to 1987 he was the Director of Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (International Institute for Comparative Social Research).

His work focused on the study of war and peace, nationalism, co-operation, and communication. He is also well known for his interest in introducing quantitative methods and formal system analysis and model-thinking into the field of political and social sciences and is one of the best known social scientists of the 20th century.

Early life

Born into a German-speaking family in Prague on July 21, 1912 when the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Deutsch became a citizen of Czechoslovakia after World War I. His mother Maria Leopoldina Scharf Deutsch[1] was a Social Democrat, and the first woman to be elected to the Czechoslovak parliament (1918) where she became known for her resistance to Nazism. His father Martin Morritz Deutsch owned an optical shop on Prague's Wenceslas Square and was also active in the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Worker's Party. His uncle Julius Deutsch was an important political leader in the Social Democratic Party of Austria.

Education

Karl studied Law at the German University of Prague, where he graduated in 1934. He discontinued further studies as his overt anti-Nazi stance caused opposition by pro-Nazi students. Karl married his wife Ruth Slonitz in 1936, and after spending two years in England returned to Prague where due to his former Anti-Nazi activities, he could not return to the German University. He instead joined its Czech counterpart, the Charles University, where he obtained a law degree in international and canon law and a PhD in Political Sciences in 1938.

Emigration and career

That same year, which saw the Munich Agreement allowing German troops to enter the Sudetenland, he and his wife did not return from a trip to the United States. In 1939 Deutsch obtained a scholarship to carry out advanced studies at Harvard University where he received a second PhD in political science in 1951.

During World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services and participated in the San Francisco conference that resulted in the creation of the United Nations in 1945. Deutsch taught at several universities; first at MIT from 1943 to 1956; then at Yale University until 1967; and again at Harvard until 1982. He served as Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard, a position he held until his death.

Deutsch worked extensively on cybernetics, on the application of simulation and system dynamics models to the study of social, political, and economic problems, known as wicked problems. He built upon earlier efforts at world modeling such as those advanced and advocated by authors of the Club of Rome such as Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows, et al. (1972). He introduced new concepts such as security community to the literature.

He held several other prestigious positions; he was a member of the board of World Society Foundation in Zürich, Switzerland from 1984 onwards. He was also elected President of the American Political Science Association in 1969, of the International Political Science Association in 1976, and of the Society for General Systems Research in 1983. From 1977 to 1987, he was Director of the Social Science Research Center Berlin (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, WZB) in Berlin.

Deutocracy

Karl W. Deutsch in his book The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control[2] hypothesized about “information elites, controlling means of mass communication and, accordingly, power institutions, the functioning of which is based on the use of information in their activities.” Thus Deutsch introduced the concept of deutocracy, combining the words ‘ Deutsch’ and ‘ autocracy’ to get the new term.

Cyberdeutocracy

Combining terms 'deutocracy' and ‘ autocracy’ one can get a new term cyberdeutocracy. It is as a political regime, based on the control of the political and corporate elites of the information and communication infrastructure of the Internet space. Cyberdeutocracy, thus as its fundamental basis has such a resource as the global and managed virtual communication space within which the destruction of the existing, transformation, generation, and introduction in the public consciousness of alternative meanings, symbols, values, and ideas takes place, that shape perception society of political reality take place. The term was first introduced by Phillip Freiberg[3], in his article that analyzed alleged Russian cyber involvement in 2016 U.S. elections, as well as banning people from social networks based on their political views.

Personal life and death

He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 1, 1992. He has two daughters, Mary D. Edsall, a writer (wife of Thomas Edsall), and Margaret D. Carroll, an art historian, and three grandchildren, Alexandra Edsall, Sophia Carroll, and Samuel Carroll.

See also

Selected publications

  • Nationalism and Social Communication ISBN 0-262-04002-6, 1953, 1966 — from a dissertation at Harvard, published by MIT Press.
  • The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control ISBN 0-02-907280-8
  • Arms Control and the Atlantic Alliance ASIN 0B0006D7HXO
  • The Analysis of International Relations (1978), by Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-033225-9
  • Nationalism and its Alternatives ISBN 0-394-43763-2
  • Politics and Government (1980), published by Houghton-Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-17840-1
  • Comparative Government: Politics of Industrialized and Developing Nations. Published by Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395297591. ISBN 9780395297599.
  • Problems of World Modeling : Political and Social Implications. Published by HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 088410656X. ISBN 9780884106562.
  • Tides Among Nations ISBN 0-02-907300-6
  • Voyage of the Mind, 1930–1980 an autobiographical sketch.

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-09-07. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
  2. ↑ Deutsch, K. (1966). The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control. New York: Free Press.
  3. ↑ What are CyberSimulacra and Cyberdeutocracy?https://www.academia.edu/37288676/What_are_CyberSimulacra_and_Cyberdeutocracy_

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.