Deutsch studied war and peace, nationalism, co-operation, and communication,[2] as well as pioneered quantitative methods and formal system analysis and model-thinking into the field of political and social sciences,[3][4][5] contributing to the development of sociological liberalism school in international relations.[6]
Karl studied law at the German University of Prague, where he graduated in 1934.[5] He discontinued further studies as his overt anti-Nazi stance caused opposition by pro-Nazi students.[5] Karl married his wife Ruth Slonitz in 1936, and after spending two years in England returned to Prague where due to his former anti-Nazi activities, he could not return to the German University. He instead joined its Czech counterpart, the Charles University, where he obtained a law degree in international and canon law and a PhD in Political Sciences in 1938.[5]
In 1938 following the Munich Agreement allowing German troops to enter the Sudetenland, he and his wife did not return from a trip to the United States. In 1939 Deutsch obtained a scholarship to carry out advanced studies at Harvard University where he received a second PhD in political science in 1951. His dissertation, Nationalism and Social Communication, was awarded Harvard’s Sumner Prize in 1951.[5]
During World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services[8] and participated in the San Francisco conference that resulted in the creation of the United Nations in 1945. Deutsch taught at several universities; first at MIT from 1943 to 1956 (he became a professor of history and political science at MIT in 1952); then at Yale University (initially as a visiting professor in 1957 before becoming a permanent professor in 1958) until 1967; and again at Harvard until 1982.[5] He became a professor at Harvard in 1967, becoming Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard in 1971, a position he held until his death.[5] At Yale University, Deutsch developed the Yale Political Data Program, which collected quantitative indicators for theory testing.[5]
Deutsch worked extensively on cybernetics, on the application of simulation and system dynamics models to the study of social, political, and economic problems, known as wicked problems. He built upon earlier efforts at world modeling such as those advanced and advocated by authors of the Club of Rome such as Limits to GrowthbyDonella Meadows, et al. (1972). He worked with an interdisciplinary team to build new concepts such as security community to the literature.{{>cn|date=September 2023}}
Karl W. Deutsch in his book The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control[9] hypothesized about “information elites, controlling means of mass communication and, accordingly, power institutions, the functioning of which is based on the use of information in their activities.”[citation needed]
Nationalism and Social CommunicationISBN978-0-262-04002-0, 1953, 1966 — from a dissertation at Harvard, published by MIT Press.
Deutsch, Karl W., Sidney A. Burrell, Robert A. Kann, Maurice Lee, Jr., Martin Lichtenman, Raymond E. Lindgren, Francis L. Loewenheim, and Richard W. Van Wagenen. 1957. Political Community and the North Atlantic Area; International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/dul1.ark:/13960/t5kb2bm1b.
The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (1966), ISBN978-0-02-907280-6
Arms Control and the Atlantic Alliance (1967), ASIN0B0006D7HXO
Politics and Government (1980), published by Houghton-Mifflin, ISBN978-0-395-17840-9
Comparative Government: Politics of Industrialized and Developing Nations (1981), Published by Houghton Mifflin. ISBN978-0-395-29759-9
Voyage of the Mind, 1930–1980 an autobiographical sketch.
“Karl W. Deutsch: Pioneer in the Theory of International Relations” - With a Preface by Charles Lewis Taylor and Bruce M. Russett | Charles Lewis Taylor | Springerhttps://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319029092
Back cover of book Problemas para el modelo del mundo (Spanish edition, 1990, of Karl W. Deutsch (editor). 1977. Problems of world modelling). Universidad Externado de Colombia, Fondo Cultural CEREC, 1990. Bogotá, Colombia.
Karl W. Deutsch special section in the Czech Sociological Review Articles on K.W. Deutsch by Miroslav Hroch, Andrei S. Markovits, Dieter Senghaas, Charles L. Taylor and Peter J. Katzenstein in the Czech Sociological Review 6 / 2012 on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.