Calgary School.

About Calgary School

The Calgary School is a term coined by Ralph Hedlin in an article in the now defunct Alberta Report in reference to four political science professors – Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, and Barry F. Cooper – who became colleagues at Alberta's University of Calgary in the early 1980s. They shared and promoted similar ideas about how political scientists could shape the rise of a particular kind of conservatism in Canada – informed by theories based on Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss. Cooper and Flanagan had met in the 1960s at Duke University while pursuing doctoral studies, while Knopff and Morton were both mentored by Walter Berns, a prominent Straussian, at the University of Toronto. They were economic, foreign policy, and social conservatives who were anti-abortion and were not in favour of legalizing gay marriage. They supported Stephen Harper in his 1993 election campaign, and former Alberta premiers Ralph Klein and Jason Kenney. A fifth University of Calgary professor, David Bercuson, co-authored publications with Cooper but was more loosely associated with the group and, at times, disagreed with the others on these public policies and candidates.