In Memoriam

Loree Bykerk

Loree Bykerk passed away November 30, 2016 at the age of 69 after battling lung cancer for nine years. Bykerk was the author of two books and over a dozen articles, most notably on consumer interest groups. She often wrote with her lifelong friend and colleague from graduate school, Ardith Maney, who retired from Iowa State University in 2008. Of their friendship, Maney explained that she somehow “fell in with a bad lot of political theorists” at Columbia University. That friendship lasted the rest of Bykerk’s life, and the two collaborated on a book and several articles over a more than 30-year span.

Bykerk’s work explores crucial elements of public policy making in the United States—interest groups, in particular their influence as related to consumer interests, the insurance industry, and gender. Interest groups are key elements in the decision making process, often determining the success or failure of legislative proposals. Bykerk’s research centered on issues that rank high on our list of national problems and bear significantly on our daily lives, as consumers, as losers or gainers in the health insurance industry, and as persons advantaged or disadvantaged on the basis of our sex.

While she sometimes lamented that other developed countries (Canada, European countries) seemed more interested in the role of consumer interest groups than scholars and practitioners in the United States were, she was pleased at the recent resurgence of interest and activity in US politics in protecting consumers’ rights, championed by politicians like senator Elizabeth Warren.

Bykerk was a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where she attended on a Regent’s Scholarship and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She continued her education at Columbia University where she held the Lete Steter Hollingsworth Fellowship and graduated with a PhD in political science.

She was hired at the University of Nebraska at Omaha as a part-time instructor in 1982 and was elevated to the position of assistant professor when a vacancy opened in 1985. She was the first woman tenured professor in the political science department, and a role model to countless students and faculty. Among her students she was known for her cheerful engaging personality, lots of small group discussion, high expectations, and a deft red pen! In 2001, she was the recipient of the College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award. Bykerk served five years as department chair and was subsequently elected by the members of the AAUP to serve as their president.

Bykerk’s promotion of civic engagement and citizen leadership may be her most enduring legacy. In 2009, after several attempts, Bykerk was successful in securing funding from the US Department of Education to initiate the Nebraska Civic Leadership Program. This program brings a group of smart, energetic, high school juniors to the University of Nebraska at Omaha every summer to study civics and leadership at the local, state, national, and international level. Their course of study culminates in a week-long trip to Washington, DC, where the students meet face-to-face with policy-makers. Her friend and coconvener, Paul Landow, has been able to sustain that program since its inception by Bykerk, through generous private funding from the Sherwood Foundation.

Bykerk taught political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha for over 28 years, retiring in 2013. After retiring she became a master gardener which was always her dream. She loved volunteering, gardening, quilting, and spending time with her grandchildren. Bykerk is survived by her husband, Cecil, of Omaha and her daughters Andrea Christopherson (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Jean Gutheil-Bykerk (Valley, Nebraska), and eight grandchildren.

Loree Bykerk was a great friend and colleague to us for almost 20 years, and yet she never seemed to age over that time. She exemplified the academic community at its very best. She was known for an excellent rapport with students and colleagues alike. Her sunny countenance and steady, unfailing sense of justice are already missed on our campus. Her memory was honored by her husband and many friends with the endowment of the Loree Bykerk Political Science Scholarship for undergraduates at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

—Jody Neathery-Castro, University of Nebraska at Omaha

—Randall Adkins, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Allan J. Cigler

Allan J. Cigler, Chancellor’s Club Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Kansas, died January 13, 2017, following an extended illness. He was 73. Allan was born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1943. Although neither of his parents finished high school, Allan and his younger sister Beverly both earned PhD’s in political science.

Allan graduated from Monroeville High School (Pennsylvania), Thiel College (BA), the University of Maryland (MA), and Indiana University, where he earned his PhD in 1973. He married Beth Ralston in 1967, and in 1973 their daughter Kirsten was born. They both survive, in Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas, respectively.

Allan published extensively on political parties, interest groups, and state politics, and, with long-time collaborator Burdett Loomis, edited multiple volumes of an American government reader, as well as Interest Group Politics, the leading collection in its field. First published in 1983, it is now in its ninth edition.

Allan spent his entire 44-year professional career at the University of Kansas (KU), where his outspoken, insightful style energized and inspired legions of students. In particular, he introduced hundreds of freshmen to politics in his honors course and deeply influenced their lives, both at the university and beyond. He won numerous teaching awards, capped by his receipt of KU’s Chancellor’s Club Distinguished Teaching Professorship in 1993.

Many of his students at the undergraduate and graduate levels have gone on to their own distinguished careers. These former students, along with his KU colleagues, recognized Allan in 2008 with the establishment of the KU Endowment’s Allan J. Cigler Academic Enrichment Fund, which currently offers support for several undergraduate research projects each year.

Beyond his academic life, Allan was a life-long angler, whose talents were highly regarded, irrespective of the stream, lake, or ocean into which he cast his lines. He reveled in KU basketball, which was easy, and endured KU football, which was considerably more difficult.

Above all, Allan was a special individual, feisty and warm, demanding and forgiving, both a great performer and a private soul. He was dedicated to his students, and especially his undergraduates, whom he bedeviled, encouraged, and ultimately prodded to great success and decades-long friendships. His family, his former students, along with his colleagues at the University of Kansas and throughout the profession, will miss him greatly.

—Don Haider-Markel, University of Kansas

Richard L. Cole

Richard L. Cole (1946–2017) died in Texas, his home state, on January 8, 2017 from cancer. He is survived by his wife, Norma; his children Jonathan Cole and wife, Emily, Ashley Cole, and Carina Souflée; and his brother Randal and wife, Erica.

Richard earned his BA and MA from North Texas State University in 1967 and 1968 and his PhD from Purdue University in 1973. He was an assistant and associate professor at The George Washington University (1973–1979). He then joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and served as dean of the Institute of Urban Studies (IUS), which had been founded by the Texas legislature in 1967. In 1980, the IUS offered only an MA in urban affairs. In 1982, the masters of regional planning was moved from Architecture to the IUS; in 1989, the IUS was approved to offer the MPA.

Richard was an accomplished scholar, superb academic administrator, and unassuming man who worked productively and congenially with many colleagues. His composed lead-by-example leadership style served his colleagues well at a time when he led them on a journey of rapid change and growth at both the university level and the school level. His collegial leadership helped tremendously to persuade colleagues and administrators to create the School of Urban and Public Affairs (SUPA) in 1990 while also strengthening the scope and functions of the Institute of Urban Studies. The university recognized Richard’s effective leadership by appointing him inaugural dean of SUPA, a position he held until 2008. By then, SUPA offered two PhD degrees, three master’s degrees (two accredited), an undergraduate interdisciplinary program, and several graduate certificates. Both the IUS and SUPA are now integral parts of UTA’s College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs. While still serving as SUPA dean, the university asked Richard to serve as interim dean of the School of Social Work (1996–1998) and acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts (2001–2003).

Richard retired reluctantly in 2016 due to his illness. His scholarly specialties were urban affairs, public policy, federalism and intergovernmental relations, and methodology.

His commitment to urban service was personified by his work with the Urban Affairs Association (UAA). The University of Texas at Arlington was one of a small number of founders of the UAA in 1968. After becoming IUS dean in 1980, Richard maintained UTA’s leadership role in the association. His own contributions were substantial, as indicated by his receiving the UAA’s service award in its first group of honorees in 2013. His contributions included hosting the annual meeting on two occasions, serving two terms on the UAA’s governing board, and offering many years of service on the editorial board of the Journal of Urban Affairs.

Early in his career, Richard wrote extensively on general revenue sharing, including local citizen participation in the program, and published an important book, Citizen Participation and the Urban Policy Process (1973), which can be read and referenced with profit today. Richard’s work on general revenue sharing (often in collaboration with David A. Caputo) demonstrated the popularity of that program, while pointing out deficiencies in the citizen-participation process. Taken as a whole, his books and articles provide an excellent picture of urban policies in the era from president Richard M. Nixon through Ronald Reagan.

Richard’s applied research is also significant. There are many examples, but two will demonstrate the point. His 1995 study of Fort Worth’s urban revitalization, completed under a grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, provides a comprehensive picture of the city’s efforts to revive downtown and outlying areas in the 1980s and 1990s. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Richard fielded a survey and conducted focus groups of displaced New Orleans public housing residents. Under contract with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, the study reached some surprising conclusions, including the finding that many former residents did not want to return to New Orleans.

Richard also had a long association with Publius: The Journal of Federalism. During his 45-year scholarly career, he authored or coauthored 17 articles in the journal. The first was “Dimensions of Elite Opposition to Consolidation,” Publius 2:2 (1972) written with David A. Caputo. His last article was “Citizen Evaluations of Federalism and the Importance of Trust in the Federation Government for Opinions on Regional Equity and Subordination in Four Countries,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 46:1 (2016): 51-76.

“Citizen Evaluations of Federalism and the Importance of Trust in the Federation Government for Opinions on Regional Equity and Subordination in Four Countries,” Publius 46:1 (2016) he coauthored with John Kincaid. He also served as book review editor of Publius from fall 2011 to winter 2016 and as a member of the Editorial Advisory Council from spring 2000 until 2017.

Richard published in many other prominent journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Law & Politics, Journal of Urban Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Social Science Quarterly, and Urban Affairs Quarterly. He also produced several textbooks, including The Politics of American Government (1999) written with Stephen J. Wayne, G. Calvin Mackenzie, and David O’Brien; Introduction to Political Science and Policy Research (1996); and Texas Politics and Public Policy (1987) coedited with Del Taebel.

He served on the editorial boards of the American Politics Quarterly, Journal of Community Action, Journal of Urban Affairs, Public Administration Review, and Research on Urban Policy. He was president of the Southwest Political Science Association in 1991–1992. He also served as a Senior Scholar in Residence and Fulbright Scholar at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during 2004 and as a Senior Research Associate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin during 2008.

Richard was a member of the Organized Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations of the American Political Science Association since the section’s founding in 1983. He participated regularly in its annual business meetings, served on the section’s council in 1992–1994 and 2002–2004, chaired a number of section committees, and won the section’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1996.

Over the years, he examined the place of cities in the American federal system and also published many opinion-survey articles, including studies of citizen attitudes toward American, Canadian, and Mexican federalism and intergovernmental relations coauthored with John Kincaid and Alejandro Rodriguez, and several decennial articles with Carl W. Stenberg III and Carol S. Weissert plumbing scholars’ rankings of key US intergovernmental issues. He surveyed the views of federalism scholars in political science and public administration on the impacts of terrorism on the federal system and the attitudes of different types of state and local officials on many issues. Unfortunately, Richard’s illness required him to retire from ongoing research activities, including a project on federal political culture with A. J. Brown and colleagues at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, and John Kincaid funded by the Australian Research Council.

Richard was a much-loved teacher who enjoyed even his online courses. His sense of social justice and fairness is perhaps what drove his steadfast commitment to mentoring junior colleagues and students. His deep appreciation for service to others shined through in his teaching philosophy and in his caring, generous mentoring and dedication to helping junior faculty and students succeed. He taught many students who later became city managers, county commissioners, and other public servants. In his last years, he taught courses on intermediate data analysis and on American federalism and intergovernmental relations. Each year, at the start of his federalism course, he gave his students a humorous quiz to test their knowledge of federalism past and present and of Texas-federal relations—always a rich source of gallows mirth. He was the consummate teacher, one who believed that all students matter and all deserved his patience, expert advice, and constructive one-on-one interaction. Richard’s values-based, inspirational mentoring is arguably his most cherished legacy.

In his last years, Richard wrote op-eds for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In April 2016, he wrote that senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential-campaign proposals to improve income inequality would be substantially thwarted in Texas because the state has the country’s seventh-worst income gap between the poor and the rich and the fifth-most regressive tax system. A reader accused Richard of promoting socialism. In August 2016, he wrote that, on the whole, the notion that Texas might profitably secede from the union, aside from being constitutionally impossible, would be disadvantageous, not the least because the Dallas Cowboys football team would no longer be able to claim to be “America’s Team.” “If legal, economic, and political forces are not strong enough [to keep Texas in the union], football, the undeclared religion of Texas,” he averred, “ensures that Texas’ place in the union remains secure.”

For reasons of friendship, scholarship, and collegiality, Richard’s place in the hearts of all who knew him will always be secure.

—John Kincaid, Lafayette College

—Alejandro Rodriguez, University of Texas at Arlington

—Robert Whelan, University of Texas at Dallas

James W. Davis

James W. Davis, professor emeritus of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, a role model for faculty and beloved by students for decades, died Wednesday, April 27, 2016 in St. Louis. A memorial service was held on Washington University’s campus in June 2016. He was 80.

Davis, a nationally recognized scholar of American politics and public policy, was a prolific writer of opinion commentaries for newspapers and other media and a frequently cited expert on US military and foreign-policy issues. His essays appeared in major news publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He also briefly served as the editorial page editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

“Few people have served Washington University in as many important ways as Jim has,” chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “Jim was a terrific professor in every respect and he served in several important administrative roles. He was one of the very first people I met as I was introduced to the community about 21 years ago, because he was vice chair of the search committee that led to my appointment as chancellor. He became a great friend and counselor, and I will miss him greatly, as we all will.”

Chancellor emeritus William H. Danforth described Davis as one of the university’s most versatile, trusted, hard-working, and effective citizens. “Jim was a devoted teacher of students and alumni. He loved and respected his university and took on countless tasks to better it,” Danforth said. “Totally unselfish, he asked nothing for himself but the excitement of a challenging new task.”

Jim was also an exceptional role model, as William Lowry, professor of political science in the College of Arts and Science at Washington University, noted in his remarks at the memorial service. “When I arrived here in 1988 as an assistant professor, I had lots of energy, lots of ideas, and very little understanding of what to do. So like many people starting a new job, I looked for a role model. I gravitated toward Jim because of certain similarities. We were both Midwesterners, both served in the military before academia, both Brookings fellows, both studied American politics, both taught American politics, and both believed in community service,” he said.

“You know how role models work,” Lowry continued. “You see what they do and try to emulate it. Well, when I started comparing how I went about being a professor to how Jim did it, I realized I had a lot to learn.”

Lowry explained that Davis was a role model in the ways he approached his job and his life. “And the fact is that I got better at these things because I figured out why Jim was so good at them: He was dedicated to his wife and his family and his job and the university…when I approach these things with same dedication that Jim showed, I too do a better job.” Thus, Lowry continued, Davis was and still is a good role model.

Davis was born and raised in Chillicothe, Missouri. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1957 before enlisting in the US Army, serving with the Army Security Agency as a Russian linguist, stationed in Germany. After his discharge, he enrolled in the graduate program in political science at the University of Michigan, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in 1962 and 1964, respectively.

Davis was a Brookings Fellow in Washington, DC, from 1963 to 1964. He taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1964 to 1968, before joining the political science department at Washington University.

His research and teaching focused on the US presidency, political campaigns, military history, the politics of war, national defense, intelligence, and security issues. He was the coauthor and editor of several books, including The National Executive Branch: An Introduction to Public Administration; Politics, Programs, and Budgets: A Reader in Government Budgeting; and, with Kenneth M. Dolbeare, Little Groups of Neighbors: The Selective Service System.

Davis taught mostly in the political science department, but he also taught courses in business, engineering, and social work. Over the years, he mentored countless students and faculty.

His classes on the American presidency were very popular with students, especially during election years when Washington University hosted one of the nation’s pivotal presidential or vice-presidential debates. In these international news events, Davis often played a key role, moderating political panel discussions and offering commentary for visiting news media.

Davis officially retired from the classroom in 2009, but he continued to be active at the university as an emeritus professor of political science and a tireless volunteer still willing to take on important leadership and advisory roles. Most recently, he served as the university’s vice chancellor for students and coordinator of special projects.

Previous administrative roles include serving as associate provost and associate dean of Arts & Sciences (1978–1980); vice chancellor and associate provost (1980–1981); and vice chancellor (1981–1986). He served as acting director of Edison Theatre and lead administrator for University College in 1980. He was acting dean for the School of Art from 1988 to 1990.

He has been a member of many important university committees, including the Committee to Prepare for the 21st Century; the Advisory Committee on Tenure, Promotion, and Personnel in Arts & Sciences; the Chancellor Search Committee; and the Undergraduate Council. He served as founding director of what was then known as the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, retiring from that position in 2006.

A champion of the pursuit of excellence in teaching, both for the student body and the faculty, Davis served as director of the Teaching Center from 1996 to 1998. On two occasions, he received the Award for Teaching Excellence from the Arts & Sciences student council. He also received an Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award.

“Jim taught big courses with lots of students, and other faculty learned from him how to do that well,” said Lowry. “He cared deeply about his students, and they loved him in return. Everyone admired his dedication to teaching.”

Davis received the university’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 1997 and the Dean’s Medal in Arts & Sciences in 2002.

The university also honored Davis and his wife, Jean, in 2015 with establishment of the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professorship. The professorship is held by Fiona Marshall of the Department of Anthropology.

“I will miss my friend Jim Davis, model academic and gifted, devoted well-prepared teacher of students, alumni, and donors,” Danforth said. “He loved and valued this university and worked hard to improve us. He repeatedly, ably, and unselfishly took on countless tasks, including serving as vice chair and organizer of the last search committee for a new chancellor. He and his wife, Jean, helped build the modern Washington University.”

Davis is survived by Jean, his wife of 54 years; a daughter, Clare Davis (David Obedin); a son, Warren (Emily) Davis, all of St. Louis; and three grandchildren. He is also survived by a sister, Jen Davis Funk, of Murphy, Texas.

—Gerry Everding, Washington University in St. Louis

—William Lowry, Washington University in St. Louis

—Steven Rathgeb Smith, American Political Science Association

Anthony King

With the death of Anthony King, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy, political science has lost one of its foremost analysts of government and politics of the last six decades.

Born in Toronto in 1934, Tony, as he was called by those that knew him, was brought up in an archetypically progressive household. His father was an art teacher and artist, his mother a librarian. Among others, they counted C. B. Macpherson as a regular visitor to their home. After gaining a BA in History and Economics at Queen’s University Ontario, Tony moved to Oxford in 1956 as a Rhodes Scholar, reading PPE in the same year as Brian Barry. He went on to complete an Oxford DPhil on the Liberal Party in the early twentieth century. He then taught at Magdalen College Oxford before he was recruited to the University of Essex in 1966 by Jean Blondel, the founding professor of the Department of Government. He remained at Essex for the rest of his career, continuing to teach students into his eighties.

Tony was a brilliant writer and speaker. He was also a highly innovative political scientist. He started his research coauthoring the 1964 and 1966 election studies with David Butler, but his professional interests and achievements were remarkably wide. Just a brief sample of his work reveals the scope of his achievements and the extent of his innovativeness. His three-part article “Ideas, Institutions and the Policies of Governments” published in 1973 in the British Journal of Political Science, in which he suggested that variations in public policy across countries reflected not so much differences in institutions as differences in ideas and ideology, anticipated by decades the so-called ideational turn in political science. His 1976 Legislative Studies Quarterly article “Modes of Executive–Legislative Relations,” the leading article in the first issue and still taken by modern day students of parliaments as a starting-point for analysis, dissected the various ways in which parliamentary groups provided a check on government, distinguishing intra-party, opposition party, cross-party, or non-party modes. His 1981 article “The Rise of the Career Politician in Britain—and Its Consequences,” also published in the British Journal of Political Science, has been enormously influential, and formed part of a more general strand of work on the motivations and incentive structures facing politicians, well-illustrated in Running Scared (The Free Press 1997), where he explained, as the sub-title nicely has it, why America’s politicians campaign too much and govern too little.

Together with his long-term close friend and colleague, Ivor Crewe, Tony published SDP: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford University Press, 1995), the definitive work on the subject, awarded the 1995 W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize by the UK’s Political Studies Association (shared appropriately enough, given their biographies, with Brian Barry’s Justice as Impartiality published in the same year). Later Crewe and King collaborated on The Blunders of Our Governments (Oneworld 2013), a book using concepts from political science but written deliberately to reach a wider nonprofessional audience. Throughout his writing, it is never hard to detect Tony’s typically vigorous prose style, a style that always put vivid metaphors to good effect.

Tony’s intellectual agenda thus included work on elections and referendums, political ideas and public policy, executive-legislative relations, political leadership, party systems, and constitutions. Amid this diversity, it is tempting to ask whether there were common intellectual threads in his work or whether the writing consisted of heterogeneous observations fixed by brilliance of phrase. One answer to this question is to be found in the unity of method that Tony displayed across his work, a method that combined the historian’s interest in the specific individual and the political scientist’s concern for the general type. This method was well-illustrated in the first chapter of Running Scared, where Tony surveyed the security or vulnerability in office of three individual politicians: a UK Conservative MP, a German Social Democrat parliamentarian, and a Democrat Representative from Maryland. The comparison was intended to illustrate the contrasting ways in which three types of elected representatives interacted with their electorate, their parties, and their legislative responsibilities in their respective countries. The concrete is made to exemplify the general.

Given his methodological approach, much of Tony’s work would nowadays be characterized as case-orientated qualitative analysis. For example, discussing the power of the prime minister in The British Constitution, Tony went through all the prime ministers between Attlee and Blair assessing how far each of them could be judged dominant in relation to their cabinets, “dominant” being defined by four explicit criteria. In place of bland generalizations, the reader is provided with an empirical analysis of individuals and their role-types according to an explicit scheme of classification. In “Modes of Executive-Legislative Relations,” Tony identified the set of logically possible relations between government and parliament, eliminating some on empirical grounds and showing how the remainder map onto parliamentary systems in the UK, France, and Germany. The notation that he developed to present this scheme shows him defining the problem in Boolean terms in a way that was later to be formalized by Charles Ragin.

The interest in how the specific individual combines with the general type led to a second abiding theme of Tony’s work, namely politicians and the ways in which they define their roles and perform their tasks. Tony was a voracious reader of political biographies and memoirs, reading put to good effect in his 2002 British Journal of Political Science article “The Outsider as Political Leader: The Case of Margaret Thatcher.” There he distinguished the social outsider from the psychological outsider and from the tactical outsider, seeing Margaret Thatcher as an example of all three types, using her social and psychological outsider status to tactical advantage.

A third abiding theme, and in his later work the over-arching theme, was the importance of understanding the art of government. Tony understood mass politics—how could such an accomplished student of elections not do so—but he thought about mass politics as the context in which the art of government was practised. It was not just the rise of the career politician that mattered for Tony, it was also the consequences of that rise for the conduct of public policy. The Blunders of Our Governments noted the failure of UK governments to engage in the military art of “backwards planning,” which involves specifying where you intend to go to and then working backwards to identify all the necessary steps on the way to getting there. An unfinished paper at the time of his death was on ministerial turn-over in British government, which also noted the consequences of such turn-over for all too frequent alterations of public policy. In short, Tony sought to identify the conditions for what Weber called the ethic of responsibility in the conduct of government and politics.

Tony reflected all of these concerns in what might be termed his political science “Atlanticism.” Over his career he played an important role in mediating the concepts of US political science to students of politics in the UK as well as interpreting developments in British politics to US readers. In 1975, reviewing books he described as the “splendidly old-fashioned art form” of political biography—including Henry Pelling on Churchill and Kenneth Morgan on Lloyd George—Tony suggested that what was missing from each was a concern for the general themes that US political scientists, including his close friend Richard Neustadt, had pursued: how leading politicians were perceived by those with whom they interacted, how they went about their work, and what were their underlying psychological dynamics. In a one-man transatlantic reciprocal trade, Tony also provided for US readers up-to-date interpretations of developments in British politics. As well as individual articles and papers, he edited four series of Britain at the Polls, published by Chatham House, in which he gathered first-rate teams providing offering analyses of the four elections between 1992 and 2005.

His most significant interpretation of British politics was his 2007 Oxford University Press book, The British Constitution. The UK has a notoriously flexible constitution, but no one reading this book, with its masterful account of the transformations of constitutional and political practice since the middle of the twentieth century, could underestimate the significance of this flexibility. Tony set the origins of constitutional change against the background of the admiration which many US political scientists in the middle of the twentieth century held for Great Britain’s system of government. This golden age was summed up in Harry Eckstein’s assessment that the distinctive characteristic of British government was its inherent capacity for effective action, a capacity unique by comparison with other contemporary democratic systems. Against this background of contemporary understanding, Tony went on to describe the transformation of the British polity, largely under the pressures of relative economic decline and loss of imperial presence, in multiple dimensions: its relations with Europe, the rise of the judiciary, the demise of local government, the devolution of power to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, the managerial transformation of the civil service, the use of referendums, and partial reform of the House of Lords. Anyone who has lived through those changes will appreciate Tony’s superbly detailed accounts of how they occurred. But, just as important, is the analysis that Tony offered of the consequences of these changes. He saw their cumulative but unintended effects as leading to a set of unresolved problems: the long-term financing of the devolved parliaments; the appropriate representation of Scotland and Wales at Westminster; the constitutional status of the House of Lords; the question of whether a distinction should be drawn between constitutional and non-constitutional acts of parliament; and whether there should be an agreed convention on when national referendums ought to be held.

A similar concern for analysing the art of government is to be found in Tony’s two books on US politics and government, Running Scared and The Founding Fathers v. the People, the latter published by Harvard University Press in 2012. In the first book Tony identified the conditions under which US politicians practise their craft, conditions which in combination make it difficult for elected officials to focus on issues of government rather than re-election. This combination includes frequent general elections, plus primaries, plus lack of party cover, plus the need to raise large amounts in campaign funds, plus an unusually high degree of electoral exposure compared to other countries. Toward the end of the book he noted that many mainstream reforms proposed for the US political system, like term limits or popular recall and national referendums, and aimed at promoting greater democracy, would actually enhance the bias against the capacity of representatives to govern. He traced this mainstream preference back to a belief in a theory of what he called “agency democracy” as contrasted with a theory of “division of labour” democracy. A similar distinction of political theories forms the central theme of The Founding Fathers v. the People, where Tony identified “two nostalgias” of American democracy, one harking back to the founding fathers’ idea of constitutional government and the other invoking the principles of popular democracy. Notably in both works Tony cited from John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage to the effect that the task of elected politicians was to exercise judgement and determine what was in both their constituents’ best interests and the nation’s best interests.

Tony’s Atlanticism was expressed in a different form in the many personal friendships he enjoyed with US political scientists. The Founding Fathers v. the People was dedicated to the memory of his first mentors in the field of American politics: Richard E. Neustadt, Nelson W. Polsby, Austin Ranney, and Donald E. Stokes. However, he always enjoyed meeting and talking to US scholars and remained excited by new ideas coming out of those conversations. To read the acknowledgements in his published work is to read a roll-call of the best and the brightest in the profession. He was a regular attender of the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, using his visits to catch up with old friends and to make new ones, in a way that combined ferocious organization and convivial eating and drinking.

Tony was one of the most observant people I have ever known, and much of his analytical ability as a political scientist rested on his capacity as he once put it “to approach well-known facts from new angles and, on occasion, to draw attention to facts that should be well-known but apparently are not.” There was one occasion, I vividly remember, that impressed upon me the combination of his powers of observation with his understanding of the history of transatlantic relations. In the part of Essex where we both lived, there were a number of former airfields used by the US Air Force during the Second World War. One day when we were travelling together, Tony suggested that we stop at one of the memorials to the pilots who had flown sorties from these fields. As we were looking at the memorial, Tony asked me if I had noted the ages of those who had been killed in battle. I had not. They were all in their early twenties.

Just as Tony was concerned for responsibility in politics, so he took his own professional responsibilities seriously. Together with Brian Barry, he was the joint founder of the British Journal of Political Science and more than once acted as an editor. Even when not an editor, he remained active in the work of the journal, as an editorial board member and referee. In his various roles, he insisted that referees were advisors, not judges. He would often give the example of what is now a highly cited paper by an eminent US political scientist, where the unanimous recommendation of the referees had been “reject.” Tony, then an editor, thought otherwise, wrote a letter to the author explaining his reasons for not accepting the referees’ recommendation and setting out some suggested changes before the paper could be published. Apparently the letter did the rounds in the author’s department eliciting a mixture of amazement, amusement, and admiration.

Tony was also active in journalism and broadcasting. On a number of election nights in the UK he acted as the leading expert on the TV broadcasts. For some time he wrote a regular column on opinion polls for the Daily Telegraph, and he frequently supplied comment pieces for other newspapers. Though he remained a Canadian by nationality, he took on some major roles in British public service, being a member of both the Nolan (later Neill) Committee on Standards in Public Life, and on the Wakeham Commission on reform of the House of Lords.

Amid all this, Tony never neglected his teaching responsibilities. Over a number of years, he and I taught and convened a first-year course on democratic ideas and institutions. Tony’s lectures were brilliant, well-crafted, amusing, and wore their learning lightly. He insisted that he and I meet regularly each week with the class tutors to go over issues of teaching and marking, and he actively second-marked essays before they were returned to the students. In addition, he also gathered together the most accomplished students in a special voluntary seminar that he ran for a number of years. Whenever I think of teaching quality, I think of his commitment to excellence in instruction.

The last occasion on which I saw Tony was a few days before he went into hospital for the operation, the after-effects of which were to be the cause of his death. I wanted to hear his opinion of how one should think of executive discretion in the light of democratic principles. He, more than anyone I knew, had thought seriously about executive behavior in the modern state. When we talked, he was his usual self: intellectually curious, willing to explore new ideas, and probing on conceptual and empirical detail. We parted agreeing that there must be some middle ground between a strict rules-bound form of government and a Schmittian decisionism. I like to think that had those conversations gone on, we might have been able to define what that middle ground was.

Tony and his wife, Jan, were wonderful hosts, frequently inviting people to their house in the Essex countryside for meals and entertainment. Both were fond of music, often going to concerts in London, and running a small group that would listen to CDs of the same work in different performances, and then discussing their relative merits. To hear Tony give his appreciation of an improvised cadenza in a Beethoven piano concerto or the viola playing in the slow movement of a Haydn quartet was a pleasure in itself— just as it was a pleasure to go with him on architectural tours of cities, walks in the country, or wine-enhanced lunches in a restaurant he had discovered. With his death political science will miss a towering figure of the last six decades. His friends will miss his wit, his insight, his vigor, and, above all, the warmth of his sympathetic personality. He was, quite simply, exceptional.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This obituary reproduces in part a shorter obituary published in PSA News, with the permission of all the parties. I thank the following for their comments on an earlier version: Nick Allen, Ivor Crewe, Jack Nagel, Ian O’Flynn, Meg Russell, and David Sanders.

—Albert Weale, University College London

Rebecca Mae Salokar

Professor Rebecca Mae Salokar, known to all as “Becky,” passed from us too young when, despite a fight waged with soldierly fortitude, she succumbed to cancer at the age of 60 on December 19, 2016. She continued to maintain most of her duties until the very end as she fought so hard to subdue the cancers. Becky was a first-rate classroom teacher, mentor, scholar, colleague, administrator, and friend, and most importantly, partner and wife to her “Judge Judy,” Judy Rubenstein.

Becky had a very long connection with Florida International University (FIU), first as an undergraduate student and then for over 30 years as a professor who served as chair of the Department of Politics and International Relations from 2012 through summer 2016. An indication of her reaching across disciplines is that she also held affiliate positions with the Women’s Studies Center (since 1988) and the International Forensics Research Institute (since 1996). After serving in the Army, Becky came to FIU as an Army reservist. She had entered the service in 1975 and was a drill instructor—likely a fearsome one—at the US Army Training Center at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Becky was also living proof of the important role played by gays in the military when they weren’t supposed to be there. She remained in the Army Reserves until 1989, and then was in the retired Army reserves.

From her 1981 undergraduate degree, Becky went on to graduate school at Syracuse University, from which she received her MA in 1982 and her PhD in 1988. At first, she approached with some skepticism a course of study that included writing what was essentially a book. However, as her dissertation adviser, Marie Provine, writes, “Those initial doubts quickly morphed into enthusiasm for making her mark in the intellectual universe,” and Becky “got going” when she realized that the leadership skills she had shown in the military could also apply in academe.

But the PhD was hardly the end of her learning, which never stopped. In 2009, roughly 30 years after she had obtained her PhD, she added lawyer to her long list of roles, earning her JD from Florida International University’s College of Law. Except for a leave from teaching during the 1L year, she maintained her full-time teaching position and finished second in her class. As if that were not enough, she was Articles Editor of the law review. She then served for a year as a law clerk to US District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida, the first Cuban appointee to the federal bench—and one of Becky’s former students. Becky then returned to the classroom and related duties, adding to her accomplishments directing FIU’s Pre-Law Advising and Training Office (PLATO), which she developed as an advising center for all FIU students interested in law school. Relatedly, she was director of the Certificate in Pre-Law Skills and Professional Values.

What a teacher Becky was! She taught courses in Judicial Process and Constitutional Law, plus classes on Gender and Law, Race and Law, and Law and the Legal Profession as well as a number of interdisciplinary courses. She served on MA committees and particularly on dissertation committees, especially on psychology and law. The extremely high quality of her teaching could be seen in her many teaching awards, which included a University Award for Excellence in Teaching, the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and two Teaching Incentive Program Awards. But those awards only begin to tell the story. What speaks even more to her substantial effect were her avid student following, her strong concern about student success and her “dogged devotion” to students, as a colleague put it. She was “the drill sergeant students loved,” as the Miami Herald reported; and one can easily see the effect of her teaching in warm memories held by her students.

Nor were Becky’s teaching and mentoring limited to FIU. They extended beyond her own campus. She provided help to many, even if she had just me them. For example, when graduate student Alison Gash, now a professor at the University of Oregon, first met Becky at a political science conference, Becky was immediately generous in the help she provided.

Teaching was not all that Becky did. She was a department chair of the best sort and a “visible leader among fellow Chairs,” as another chair reported. She was someone upon whom other chairs could call for expert advice about handling difficult cases, especially legally-sensitive faculty evaluations. In addition to being attentive to detail and able to coordinate team efforts efficiently to achieve a prompt outcome, she had the skill, particularly sought after, of drafting constitutions and by-laws. She led the faculty effort to draft and then obtain faculty approval for the first constitution and by-laws for the 2015 establishment of the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs. Becky knew the details and technicalities, but it would surprise no one that, “full of good old common sense,” she gave her advice both supportively and with great wit, in “her characteristic loud and clear voice.”

Colleagues in the field of law and courts knew Becky best for The Solicitor General: The Politics of Law (Temple University Press, 1992). Her other book was co-edited with her undergraduate mentor, later her colleague, Mary Volcansek, Women in Law: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996). When news of Becky’s passing circulated, several colleagues wrote to call attention to, and speak highly of, her important work on LGBT subjects, which they used frequently in their courses. Gay rights scholars Dan Pinello and Alison Gash noted that they had on several occasions usefully cited her 1997 article, later a 2001 book chapter, “Beyond Gay Rights Litigation: Using a Systemic Strategy to Effect Political Change in the United States.”

Becky also wrote about Florida government and politics, including several articles in Justice System Journal about judicial elections there. In that writing, she drew on her experience in helping her partner of more than 20 years, Judy Rubenstein, win an election to be a judge of Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit. (They married in 2016.) A friend reminded us of a story of Becky’s political ingenuity. During Judy’s first campaign, the other candidate was drawing the larger audience, so Becky commandeered an ice cream cart and handed out free ice cream, thus drawing the audience to hear Judy.

As a colleague, Becky readily exchanged ideas, starting while still in graduate school and working on what became The Solicitor General. In addition to graciously accepting suggestions, she quickly became of considerable help with suggestions of her own on what others of us were doing when we needed a wise word—and the suggestions came with a good dose of wit. Becky was always a great conversationalist with a wicked sense of humor. And she was “not just” a colleague; she was a warm, optimistic, and empathetic friend as well, even at considerable geographic separation. As Marie Provine puts it, Becky’s friendships were “multi-dimensional—the intellectual and familiar all mixed together.” She was a wonderful, warm, welcoming friend, who could even help someone shop in Miami for an appropriate Hawaiian sport shirt needed for an “event.” Indeed, for anyone, colleague and friend, who came to Miami, she and Judy Rubenstein provided a welcoming atmosphere.

Further evidence that there was so much more to Becky than her professional life is that she was a keen fisherman, a scuba diver who loved the Everglades, a talented photographer, an adventurous traveler, a committed sports fan, and a lover of animals who even once fostered a baby squirrel that had fallen from its nest. To top it all, she was licensed by the Coast Guard as a captain of Uninspected Passenger Vessels up to 50 gross tons. Mary Volcansek reminds us that Becky even knew how to dispose of an American flag properly so that, when it was placed on a fire, the stars floated upwards in the smoke.

From drill instructor to political science professor, who ultimately rode tricycles with Judy in deference to creaky knees, Becky Salokar was a force of nature. Wherever she is, people should make way for her.

—Doris Marie Provine, Arizona State University

—Mary Volcansek, Texas Christian University

—Victor M. Uribe-Uran, Florida International University

—Stephen L. Wasby, Eastham, Massachusetts

Virgil Homer Stevens, Jr.

Virgil Homer Stevens, Jr., known as “Jim” to everyone who knew him, died peacefully on January 16 at the age of 96 at the Villa Valencia nursing home in Laguna Hills, California. He was emeritus associate professor of political science at California State University, Los Angeles, where he taught for over 20 years.

Born in Denison, Texas, he completed his undergraduate degree in government at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1941, before enlisting in the Navy for the duration of World War II. He was an aide to Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz on one of his assignments during the war.

After the war, he completed his master’s degree in international relations at the University of Southern California in 1947 and married that year. He went on for the PhD, also at USC, completing his work in public administration in 1953 with a dissertation on the personnel problems of international agencies, a subject that continued to infuse his work and teaching throughout his career. He spent the next two years as an assistant professor at USC and began a relationship with public administrators and schools of public administration in Pakistan and Indonesia that would last two decades. He wrote chapters and a monograph on various personnel and organization and management topics in both countries during the 1950s and the 1960s. His 1960 monograph Public Administration in Pakistan: Organization and Personnel Management of the Central Administration is still listed in the Amazon catalog.

In Pakistan he was an advisor in public administration and lecturer at the University of Karachi in the late 1950s and then spent three years in a similar position with Indiana University in Indonesia. He joined Cal State LA in 1963, doing some of the same governmental activities in the United States that he had done in other countries. He directed an institute on African and Asian studies on campus from 1963 to 1965 and was a member of a survey team in India for the CSU system in the summer of 1965. As a summer research professor with the US Civil Service Commission in 1969, he surveyed federal recruiting in southern California.

In the 1970s he directed the external Masters of Public Administration program for the campus and served on various committees associated with the department and the Master of Science in Public Administration program that it administered. He was involved with the US Association for the United Nations in Los Angeles and the College Federal Council, which brought faculty and federal administrators in the area together for periodic exchanges of views.

A recollection 50 years after the fact (published on the world wide web) by one of his students in Pakistan fondly recalls “Dr. Stevens” as having selected the student to enroll in the Master of Public Administration program and having advised him personally on ethical problems in administration.

In the department Jim served on several different committees both inside and outside the public administration program. He taught personnel management and international management during his entire career, stressing fundamental principles.

He retired in 1985. His wife, the former Francis Vivian Hinkle, died in 2000.

—J. Theodore Anagnoson, California State University, Los Angeles