The conference on "Vincent Ostrom: The Quest to Understand Human Affairs" will be held at the Indiana Memorial Union on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington, from May 31-June 3, 2006.

We are pleased to be able to host this conference in honor of Vincent Ostrom's life and work. Vincent Ostrom's career as a teacher and scholar spans nearly seven decades, beginning with academic appointments at the University of Wyoming (1945-1948) and University of Oregon (1949-1958) and followed by an appointment at UCLA (1958-1964) and Indiana University (1964-present). We represent students from the middle years--Filippo Sabetti studied with Vincent from 1968 to 1973 and Barbara Allen worked with Lin and Vincent from the beginning of the Workshop in 1973 until 1981. Both of us have continued to take part in Workshop events and are members of the Workshop Affiliated Faculty. As most of you know, Vincent's approach to political science and public administration was never merely "academic." He took theory "into the streets" from his very early studies of administration and authority in small communities and public entrepreneurship in metropolitan settings to later work in constitutional and epistemic choice. With major contributions to the development of natural resource policy in Alaska, studies challenging major Federal proposals to tame the rivers of the American West, and research that often offered the only alternative perspective to governments bent on consolidating authority for everything from school administration to the termination of Native American treaty claims, Vincent Ostrom brought political ideas to bear on many of the great political deeds of his time. These practical experiences fueled such major works as The Political Theory of a Compound Republic, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, The Meaning of American Federalism, and The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies. In many respects, the books of Vincent Ostrom are autobiographical, reflecting the life of political practice and artisanship that his students hope to emulate and that we celebrate in this conference.

Barbara Allen
Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, Carleton College

Filippo Sabetti
Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University

The conference will include paper presentations, roundtables, and other research-related activities (see Program).

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HELP SUPPORT THE CONFERENCE!  Donations are needed to help support the travel of colleagues from overseas to attend this conference. If you would like to make a donation, please go to the Registration page for details.

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Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis
Indiana University, 513 North Park Ave.
Bloomington, IN 47408-3895 USA
Ph: 812.855.0441/Fax: 812.855.3150
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Website: http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop