The establishment of the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science in 1973 was preceded by earlier examples of the Institute's engagement in the social science disciplines. Chief among these was the School of Economics and Politics, which operated from 1933-1949, until its absorption into the newly created School of Historical Studies. Also, during his tenure as IAS Director (1947-1966), Robert Oppenheimer spearheaded the Psychology Advisory Committee, which included among its objectives the recommendation of scholars in the field to invite to the Institute.
Carl Kaysen, who had been a professor of political economy at Harvard University, had been brought on as IAS Director with a mandate to "extend the range of work at the Institute to include some work in the social sciences." Under his leadership, the School of Social Science started its history with the 1968-1969 academic year as a three-year pilot program variously called "Program in the Social Science," "Social Science Program," and "Social Sciences Program," with funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, which donated $250,000 each. Other prominent funding agencies from the earliest history of the Program, and later of the School, included the Ford Foundation, The 1907 Foundation (now The UPS Foundation), and the National Science Foundation.
The three-year pilot was conceived with the intention of focusing on specific issues, the most successful of which was the topic of social change, though others, including human and social information processing, were explored. In the first years of the Program, roughly five scholars per academic year were invited. The Program also offered seminars, often in conjunction with scholars in the School of Historical Studies. (Weekly seminars are an on-going activity of the School held during the academic term, and collaboration with the School of Historical Studies continued into the 1980s, when each of the Schools branched off to support seminar series of their own.)
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz was appointed to the Faculty in 1970, and it was initially hoped that three appointments in the social sciences would be made before the Program became the Institute's fourth School. Appointing the third Faculty member, after Geertz and Kaysen himself, proved difficult, however. Internal issues regarding the process of appointments to the Faculty came to a head between the Director, the Board of Trustees, and the Faculty, most notably with the hiring of Robert Bellah, who was appointed by Kaysen over the objections of some of the Institute's Faculty, then resigned before assuming the post. In 1973, an agreement was reached by all parties that the School of Social Science would be launched despite there still being only two members of the School's Faculty.
The following year, however, there was already a third Faculty appointment to the School, economist Albert O. Hirschman, and the School found its footing. By the time of Kaysen's Report of the Director: 1966-1976, he had much to say about the School: "The program began in 1968-69 on a modest scale with four visiting members. Since then, we have had almost 100 members, an excellent and diverse group including anthropologists, demographers, economists, economic historians, historians, political scientists, sociologists and social psychologists. They have included established leaders and promising young scholars from universities in this country, Latin America, England, Europe, the Middle East and Asia." In many ways, this description of the School of Social Science continues to apply today, though it has hosted many more Members and expanded into additional disciplines and geographic areas since then.
The smallest of the Institute's Schools, the School of Social Science has supported a maximum Faculty of four with the following appointments made in the indicated years: Michael Walzer (1980) specializing in political theory and moral philosophy; Joan Wallach Scott (1985) specializing in labor and critical history; Eric Maskin (2000), specialist in economic theory; Danielle Allen (2007) in political theory; and Didier Fassin (2009) in social anthropology. The School has also supported long-term appointments, including Thomas S. Kuhn, Wolf Lepeneis, Bernard Lewis, and Adam Ashforth. The School supports 15-20 Members each year, as well as Visitors and Research Assistants.
The School designates a theme for each year "to create a sense of community among the Members." These annual themes are often brought together under a more general theme for anywhere from one to four years, and are intended to guide but be the exclusive direction for work in the School at the time. The first theme (1973-74) was "Islamic Societies." Examples of other past themes include: "Toward a Broader Economics" (1983-84) and "The Rule of Law Under Pressure" (2007-08). An example of a general theme would be "Globalization and the Different Kinds of Local Resistance to It: A Three-Year Program" (1997-2000), which included the annual themes: "Universalism of Human Right," "Political Economy," and "Cultural Globalization."
