Robert Morrison MacIver

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Robert Morrison MacIver (1882-1970) was a Scottish-American sociologist, political philosopher, and educator. He was a leading theorist of the interaction between the operation of society and the political institution.

Robert M. MacIver was born in Stornoway, Scotland, on April 17, 1882. His education was in classics at the University of Edinburgh and at Oxford University. He lectured in political science and sociology at Aberdeen University (1907-1915). At the University of Toronto (1915-1927) he was professor and head of the department of political science and served as vice-chairman of the Canadian War Labor Board (1917-1919). After heading the department of economics and sociology at Barnard College (1927-1929), he was Lieber professor of political philosophy and sociology at Columbia University (1929-1950).

During the next decade MacIver was successively director of research for the Jewish Defense Agencies, the Assault on Academic Freedom, the United Nations, and the Juvenile Delinquency Evaluation Project for New York City. He was president of the American Sociological Society (1940) and president and then chancellor of the New School for Social Research (1963-1966).

Beginning as a political philosopher with broad social interests, MacIver viewed the state as a social institution that is necessarily interdependent with other institutions and the prevailing class system. These themes formed the basis of his Community (1917) and The Modern State (1926). But in several editions of his Society (particularly the 1937 edition), he came to regard society as a network of acquired interests expressed in groups or associations and in legitimate value systems called institutions. Interests differ sociologically by emphasis either on goals (culture or myth) or on means and techniques (civilizational interests). The Web of Government (1947) analyzed the two forms of interest in promoting social change and gave special attention to the critical role of government in facilitating or moderating varied effects of innovations. In a related work, Social Causation (1942), he analyzed social change as a complex process of social causation in which a key aspect is the shared evaluation of cultural and technical innovation.

MacIver also had a continuing and judicious interest in many public issues. In The More Perfect Union (1949) he warned about the vicious circle of discrimination, deprivation, and accentuated racial prejudice. In Academic Freedom in Our Time (1955) he exposed contemporary assaults on academic freedom and convincingly demonstrated the importance of such freedom for a viable society. He directed a thorough investigation of delinquency programs in New York City which was summarized in one of his last books, The Prevention and Control of Delinquency (1966). He died on June 15, 1970.

Further Reading

MacIver's autobiography, As a Tale That Is Told (1968), is informative. Morroe Berger and others, Freedom and Control in Modern Society (1954), contains discussions of some aspects of MacIver's work by former students.

Quotes:

"When you educate a man you educate an individual; when you educate a woman you educate a whole family."

Robert Morrison MacIver (April 17, 1882 – June 15, 1970) was a U.S. (Scottish-born) sociologist.

MacIver was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland (17 April 1882) to Donald MacIver, a general merchant and tweed manufacturer, and Christina MacIver (née Morrison). On 14 August 1911 he was married to Elizabeth Marion Peterkin. (Three children: Ian Tennnt,Morrison, Christina Elizabeth, and Donald Gordon.)

He received degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh (M.A. 1903; D.Ph. 1915), Oxford (B.A. 1907), Columbia (Litt.E. 1929 and Harvard (1936). In his rather long period of formal education MacIver had never made any academically supervised study of sociology. His work in that field was distinguished by his acumen, his philosophical understanding, and extensive study of the major pioneering works of Durkheim, Toennies, Max and Alfred Weber, Simmel and others in the British Museum Library, London, while resident as a student in Oxford.

He was a University Lecturer in political science (1907) and sociology (1911) at the University of Aberdeen. MacIver left Aberdeen in 1915 for a post at the University of Toronto where he was professor of political science and later head of department (1922-27). In 1927 he accepted an invitation from Barnard College of Columbia University in New York where he became professor of social science(1927-36). He was xusequently named Lieber Professor of political science and sociology at Columbia University and taught there from 1929 to 1950.

MacIver was Vice-Chairman of the Canada War Labor Board (1917-18). He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the American Philosophical Society. He was a member of the American Sociological Society, and was elected the 30th president of the American Sociological Association in 1940.^[1]. He was equally member of the Institut Internationale de Sociologie and of Phi Beta Kappa.

Works

• Community, (1917)
• Labor in the Changing World, (1919)
• Elements of Social Science, (1921)
• The Modern State, (1926)
• Relation of Sociology to Social Work, (1931)
• Society 1st Edition (textbook), (1931)
• Economic Reconstruction, (1934)
• Society 2nd Edition (textbook), (1937)
• Leviathan and the People, (1939)
• Social Causation, (1932)
• Toward Abiding Peace, (1933)
• The Web of Government, (1947)
• Society 3rd Edition (textbook), With Charles Page, (1949)
• The More Perfect Union (1949)

Sources

Entry in: A Dictionary of Sociology, George Marshall (Ed.), 1998, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280081-7 Curriculum vitae provided by MacIver to the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches in 1950, in box 428.11.01.1 of the archives of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland (http://library.oikoumene.org/en/home.html)

References

1. ^ http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/governance/past_officers/presidents_by_date

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