The Chicago School of Political Science, which emerged at the
University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, is widely known for
its reconception of the study of politics as a scientific endeavor
on the model of the natural sciences. Less attention has been
devoted to the genesis of the school itself. In this article, we
examine the scientific vision, faculty, curriculum, and supporting
institutions of the Chicago School. The creation of the Chicago
School, we find, required the construction of a faculty committed
to its vision of the science of politics, the muster of resources
to support efforts in research and education, and the formation of
curriculum to educate students in its precepts and methods. Its
success as an intellectual endeavor, we argue, depended not only on
the articulation of the intellectual goals but also, crucially, on
the confluence of disciplinary receptiveness, institutional
opportunity, and entrepreneurial talent in support of a science of
politics.