Maurice Duverger (born June 5, 1917) is a French jurist, sociologist and politician. He was born in Angoulême, Charente.
Starting his career as a jurist at the University of Bordeaux, Duverger became more and more involved in political science and in 1948 founded one of the first faculties for political science in Bordeaux, France. An emeritus professor of the Sorbonne and member of the FNSP, he has published many books and articles in newspapers, such as Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, El País, and especially Le Monde.
Duverger has studied the evolution of political systems and the institutions that operate in diverse countries, showing a preference for empirical methods of investigation rather than philosophical reasoning.
He devised a theory which became known as Duverger's law, which identifies a correlation between a first-past-the-post election system and the formation of a two-party system. While analysing the political system of France, he coined the term semi-presidential system.
From 1989 until 1994 he was a member of the Group of the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament.
In 1981 he was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.