Philippe C. Schmitter (Washington DC, 1936) is an American political scientist. He is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. Since 1967 he has been successively assistant professor, associate professor and professor in the Politics Department of the University of Chicago, then at the European University Institute (1982–86) and at Stanford (1986–96). In 1996 he returned to the European University Institute, where he retired in 2004.