Politics and the Life Sciences: Current Research Questions and Teaching Biopolitics

Abstract

Biopolitics is the study of the relationship between our biological makeup and our political behavior. While this line of inquiry can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, the contemporary surge of interest dates from the middle 1960s. Among the major contributing factors then were—take your pick—James C. Davies' Human Nature in Politics (1963), a 1964 essay by Lynton K. Caldwell, and a panel chaired by Albert Somit at the Southern Political Science Association (1967). Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic growth of interest in “biopolitics,” as the area came to be known, to the point where some 900 works have now appeared (Peterson and Somit, in press).A variety of indicators testify to the acceptance that biopolitics has since achieved within the discipline: formal recognition by the International Political Science Association (1972); biopolitical articles in our leading professional journals; books bearing the imprint of leading publishers; the regular inclusion of panels on biology and politics at regional, national, and international conferences; support from major foundations, such as the Rockefeller and Lilly Foundations; awards by NSF and NIA for biopolitical research; the establishment of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (1981) and its journal, Politics and the Life Sciences (1982) and, most recently, recognition by the American Political Science Association of biopolitics as an “organized subfield.”