1949
IPSA was officially founded in September 1949, when representatives from sixteen countries gathered at UNESCO House in Paris. That inaugural meeting was led by delegations from the national associations of IPSA’s four founding countries: the United States, Canada, India, and France. In late 1949, the first Executive Committee led by IPSA’s founding President Quincy Wright (1949-1952) and Executive Secretary François Goguel (1949-1950) began to put into place the structures that would enable IPSA to take up the challenge laid out in its constitution: "[promoting] the advancement of political science throughout the world."
The new Association had one objective, which involved three actions: building the organization, fostering the intellectual development of political science, and helping spread the discipline geographically.
Recalling the Sophists who approached Socrates with the argument that motion did not exist, to which the philosopher replied by merely arising and starting to walk, so UNESCO had transformed speculative and theoretical arguments as to the existence of a political science into action by calling the present conference.
Maurice Duverger at the founding conference of the IPSA,
12 September 1949
The first article about the creation of IPSA, published in the UNESCO Courier in November 1949
A new organization in the field of social sciences - the International Political Science Association - was set up in Paris at a conference held under the auspices of UNESCO's Social Sciences Department from September 12 to 16.
Meeting at UNESCO House, scientists from 16 countries set up a Provisional Executive Committee with Professor Q. Wright of the University of Chicago as chairman and Professor M. Bridel, University of Lausanne, and Dr. W. Brogan, University of Cambridge as Vice-chairmen. Professor François Goguel, of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, is the Association's first Executive Secretary.
The Association will work to stimulate the creation of political science groups in countries where the study of political phenomena is not yet recognized as a distinct academic discipline. At present, professional associations of political science specialists exist only in Canada, France, India and the United States*, although plans are underway to form groups in other countries, including the United Kingdom.
With the recently established associations of Economics and Sociology, the Political Science Association should become an important instrument for furthering international understanding.
*There were also three other national political science associations: Finland (1935), China (1932), and Japan (1948).
