Al Stepan, influential political scientist and friend of the Berkley Center, died on September 26, 2017, at the age of 81.
Throughout his life, Stepan’s many contributions to the field of political science included a rich array of scholarly accomplishments and a passionate commitment as an educator. Among his 17 books and many academic papers, his book Arguing Comparative Politics enjoyed multiple publications and is considered a key text for aspiring political scholars. Stepan taught political science at Yale University, University of Oxford, and Columbia University, where he became the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, and later the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.
Professor Stepan was involved with many Berkley Center events and projects. With center Senior Fellow and World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) Director Katherine Marshall and Scott Appleby (dean of the Keough School at the University of Notre Dame), he grappled with the complex links among religious engagement, peacebuilding, and development; this tripartite effort helped to push both thinking and action, too often caught in silos, towards a far more joined up approach.
He also advised the joint Berkley Center-WFDD country-mapping effort in Senegal, a country he knew intimately. “Al Stepan’s deep knowledge of wide-ranging country situations, incisive appreciation of political and legal realities, and constant openness to ideas and information (even some that challenged his core teachings) helped in exploring new avenues that remain at the core of the Berkley Center’s approach,” Katherine Marshall commented. “I wish we could put a host of questions that preoccupy us today to him. There are few people in the world with his breadth and depth of understanding of the complex ways in which religious institutions and beliefs shape national and global politics.”
Stepan also worked closely with Berkley Center Senior Research Fellow Timothy Shah on a book titled Rethinking Religion and World Affairs, which explores how in a society with an increasingly secularist mindset, religion still permeates and influences global politics, economic development, and social structures.
Shah, who also serves as the director for international research of the Religious Freedom Research Project, reflected on what an honor it was to work with Stepan: "Ever since I first met Al Stepan when he was teaching at Oxford 20 years ago, he has been a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration and encouragement to me personally and to dozens of scholars and students working in the burgeoning field of religion and politics, not only in the United States but in Europe and beyond.”
Stepan has been recognized for his innovative contributions and influence on the field of comparative politics. He has been awarded the Kalman Silvert Award for his lifetime contribution to Latin American studies. In 2012, he received the Karl Deutsch Award for achievement in political science from the International Political Science Association.
Stepan’s works on democracy and its relationship with multiculturalism and religion are more relevant now than ever. With crises of ethnicity and culture occurring in America and across the world, Stepan’s important and insightful theories cement his legacy in the worlds of development, academia, and international diplomacy.
“With his classic essay, 'The Twin Tolerations,' first published in 2000, Stepan provided a crucial framework for understanding the foundations of religious freedom and the whole structure of religion-state relations for a generation of scholars and advocates,” Shah stated. “Al is simply irreplaceable."