The International Conference for the Study of Political Thought

2022 CSPT Annual Conference: Anatomies of Power: Praxis, Violence, Rule

CSPT’s 2022 Conference “Anatomies of Power: Praxis, Violence, Rule,” will take place on May 13 and 14, at Columbia University. For more information of the conference see our page here.

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2021 Spitz Prize Awarded to Katrina Forrester and Massimiliano Tomba.

The David and Elaine Spitz Prize is awarded every year for the best books in liberal and/or democratic theory published two years earlier. The 2021 co-winners are Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy and Massimiliano Tomba's Insurgent Universality: An Alternative Legacy of Modernity. Please read the Prize Committee's commendations here.

Spitz Prize 2022 Call for Nominations

Did you read an outstanding book of political theory published in 2020? Did you write one? Nominate it for the Spitz Prize!

Read the call for nominations here.

The International Conference for the Study of Political Thought is an international, interdisciplinary organization of scholars and informed citizens interested in preserving and encouraging a broad, humanistic style of thinking about politics. Founded in Toronto in 1967 by J.G.A. Pocock, Melvin Richter, and Neal Wood, CSPT is now composed of an extensive network of affiliated groups and scholarly organizations. The organization aims to hold one major conference each year on a topic of broad theoretical and political significance, drawing together scholars from intellectual history, political and social theory, philosophy and related fields. In addition to our annual conference, we plan to organize smaller gatherings – workshops, lectures, panels – on contemporary themes from a theoretically and historically sensitive perspective.

We are glad to announce that the CSPT Conference, Anatomies of Power: Praxis, Violence, Rule, will take place on May 13-14, 2022 at Columbia University. This year’s conference explores the ways in which political thinkers, past and present, have theorized different modalities of power. Beyond questions of who ought to have political power, and what makes it (il)legitimate, the conference delves into the specific infrastructures, social bases, moral psychologies, and ideologies of power. Click here for more information on the conference schedule and the registration.

Please follow these directions to the conference venue, Faculty House.