Seymour Martin Lipset is primarily known as a student of democracy. Although much of his work focuses on the United States, he also studies democracy in its many manifestations around the globe. Lipset often makes comparisons between government systems, and he has a special interest in analyzing the differences between democracy in its Canadian and U.S. forms. Lipset has frequently argued that because the United States was born of revolution, its governing forms and its attitudes about democracy are profoundly different from its northern neighbor, even though both countries have had remarkably similar histories following their initial formation. Methodologically both a sociologist and a political scientist, he uses theories developed in a variety of fields while, at the same time, infusing into his work a strong admixture of historical empiricism.
Lipset's career has been remarkably prolific. Born in New York City in 1922, he received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1949. He has also received numerous honorary degrees, including LLDs from universities in the United States, Latin America, Israel, and Europe. While earning his Ph.D. in sociology, Lipset lectured at the University of Toronto. After receiving his degree, he went on to teach for three years at the University of California at Berkeley, before heading back to Columbia University as an assistant professor of sociology from 1950 to 1956. For the next decade, he was back at Berkeley as a professor of sociology, before accepting the position of George Markham Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, which he held from 1965 to 1975. After that, he became a professor of political science and sociology at Stanford University, where he served until 1992. Since 1990, he has also held the Hazel Chair of Public Policy at George Mason University. Lipset has also held numerous positions at research foundations. He has been a fellow or visiting scholar at Hebrew University (Israel), the Russell Sage Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center (Princeton University), the Hoover Institute (Stanford University), and the Progressive Policy Institute, the latter two positions he currently holds.
In his political writings, Lipset owes a great debt to John Stuart Mill and his theory of countervailing powers within democracies. At the same time, Lipset shares Max Weber's concern that modern bureaucracies and the sheer complexity of modern states can produce a citizenry unaware of and uninterested in the role they must play in maintaining a functioning democracy. While Lipset agrees with Marx that class divisions can erode the civil society, he believes that democracy in its existing form--that is, allied with capitalist economic relations--can and should survive. Thus, while Marx expected to see class divisions intensify until eliminated by revolution, Lipset believes they should be managed so as to both avoid revolution and limit their destructive tendencies. The key to maintaining bourgeois democracy--to use Marxist terms--is economic growth, according to Lipset. As long as enough members of society believe that they and their children can expect a more abundant future, the divisions between classes can provide a healthy dynamism, rather than a destructive force for violence and revolution.
Examining democracy in its various manifestations through American history--as well as in its many forms around the contemporary world--Lipset argues that this form of government rests on a subtle interplay of forces, with those pushing for conformity and those setting the stage for disintegration existing in a carefully maintained balance. If a state moves too far in one direction or the other, he says, democracy is likely to fail. Lipset also sees a usefulness in the sharp disagreements among citizens over important issues, so long as those disagreements are counter-balanced by others. For example, it is healthy for American democracy, he says, that there are both fiscally-conservative Republicans who support social libertarianism and economically-liberal Democrats who tend toward conservative positions on social issues. These crisscrossing political cleavages, he argues, maintain both healthy debate and insure that alliances remain fluid, thereby avoiding widespread zealotry and intransigence.
The evidence for why this system works can be found in U.S. history, Lipset concludes, beginning with America's break with Great Britain which balanced strong, centralized leadership with the centrifugal forces of revolution. More generally, the revolution and subsequent American history has involved a playing out of the antagonistic forces of equality of opportunity and an acceptance of the inequality of condition. That is to say, Americans have effectively balanced a strong and fair rule of law with a capitalistic system that abundantly rewards aggressive achievers.
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