David Easton
David Easton, Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), past president of the American Political Science Association, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, died July 19, 2014. Born in Canada in 1917, Easton received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees (1939, 1943) from the University of Toronto, where he met and married Sylvia Johnstone. In 1943 David was appointed a teaching fellow at Harvard University, earning his doctorate in government in 1947. Easton joined the faculty in political science at the University of Chicago in 1947 as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor in 1955. In 1969, he was appointed the Andrew McLeish Distinguished Service Professor at Chicago and from 1971 to 1980, was also the Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Political Science at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, dividing his time between Chicago and Queens. He joined the faculty at University of California, Irvine in 1982. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1962, Easton received three honorary degrees, from McMaster University, Kalamazoo College, and The Free University of Berlin. He served as past president of the International Committee on Social Science Documentation (1969–1971), vice president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, trustee and chairman of the Academy of Independent Scholars (1979–81), member of the Committee on Higher Education of the Royal Society of Canada (1978–80), and chairman of the Committee on Scientific Information Exchange of the American Political Science Association (1972).
CONTRIBUTION
Part of the behavioralist/post-behavioralist revolutions in social science, Easton criticized existing political science for failing to both construct coherent theories of politics and to develop systematic techniques to gather and analyze data with which to test such theories. He pioneered the field of empirical political theory, advocating the development of a broad conceptual framework that would be a prototype of something comparable to natural science. His arguments touch on critical themes in the philosophy of science, the relation of political science to public policy, and the post-behavioral revolution.
Easton addressed a question at the heart of political science as a discipline: how do we define politics itself? Easton’s definition of politics as “the authoritative allocation of values,” and the way he built his political system on this definition, revealed the strength of what he called empirical political theory and the continuing importance of integrating theoretical and empirical political science. His system’s analysis of political life encouraged the adoption of a framework for political analysis that was free of traditional Western-oriented conceptual approaches and terminology in favor of asking how political systems fulfill critical functions, such as inputs of political demands and conversion of these demands into output and feedback. While this systems approach appeared in sociology and other social sciences, it was Easton who specified how it could be applied to behavioral research on politics.
Easton’s agenda for behavioral and post-behavioral political science first appeared in “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems” (World Politics 1957 and reprinted in over 100 different publications). The fully-developed Eastonian theory was presented most prominently in three books: (1) The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science,1 (2) A Framework for Political Analysis,2 and (3) A Systems Analysis of Political Life.3 These works restructured the conceptual landscape of 20th century political science and provided a fresh, new way to analyze political phenomena. Indeed, Easton’s success is evidenced by the fact that we routinely now speak of a political system, inputs and outputs, demands, system overload etc. without even recognizing that this vocabulary was developed as part of an underlying theory about the political world, and that Easton is the person who developed this theory. Easton’s contributions extend into careful empirical work in socialization theory and political psychology, as witnessed in Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy, with Jack Dennis.4
Easton’s work was critical in the development of behavioral and post-behavioral analysis, and in establishing empirical political theory as a body of work in which theories of political life were examined and tested using empirical data in a more systematic manner than had heretofore been the case. Easton’s theory reoriented analysis of the discipline, helping promote links with other disciplines and the blurring of disciplinary boundaries. (Easton agreed with Charles Merriam in advocating social science as a single field, telling with delight how Merriam climbed a step-ladder late one night to chisel off the “S” from “Social Sciences” on what Merriam and Easton thought of as the Social Science building at the University of Chicago.) Easton’s theory attempted to simplify the whole of the political system and account for the different factors that explain political action. It moved the discipline away from its traditional emphasis on constitutions and institutional or historical analysis to forge strong bonds with other disciplines in social science, e.g., anthropology, sociology, psychology and economics. In the process, Easton re-conceptualized our most basic assumptions and concerns in studying politics. While David never repudiated what he took to be the cardinal virtue of behavioralism—its commitment to looking closely at how people acted and what they thought—his 1969 APSA Presidential Address established his later criticism of a number of aspects of the behavioralist movement, including an antiquated view of science that equated the scientific enterprise with the principles of what David termed “early positivism.” Unlike many champions of behavioralism (both early and late), David remained attentive to many of the important developments in the history and philosophy of science and understood how much the philosophical bases underlying scientific methodology shifts and changes over the years. He later supported the Perestroika movement’s attempts to open the discipline to new approaches and methodologies.
LEGACY
Even after Eastonian systems analysis became commonplace, Easton’s intellectual legacy continues to inspire for both its breadth and its depth. Is there a human nature on which we should construct our scientific theories of political life? What is the role of culture in shaping any such nature? In molding our political potential? Does political science have a central core, some unique definition and conceptualization of the political that sets it apart as a discipline, separate and distinct from other branches of social science? How objective and value-free is our work? Is it science? Are there intrinsic and significant differences between the micro-level analysis of rational choice theory and individualist theories of human behavior on the one hand and the macro-level assumptions that need to be made when we discuss collective behavior? Is it intellectually valid to speak of collective entities, such as the State, as if they exist apart from the separate individuals that constitute them? These are just some of the questions raised by Easton’s work. David had an unusual capacity to ask serious questions as a way of forcing others to think more clearly about what they were doing and why it mattered. Always interested in the work of his colleagues, he nonetheless rarely, if ever, tried to suggest that others should follow in his research direction.
This lack of pretension was especially impressive given Easton’s monumental position in political science. Easton’s central contribution—the development of a value-free and culturally unbounded vocabulary of politics that he then constructed into a general theory concerning the political system —constituted an intellectual innovation that enabled scholars working primarily from an institutional and process perspective to become genuinely abstract and theoretical. Once the best-selling political science texts in the world, Easton’s books proved invaluable for scholars working in comparative politics, freeing them from the established Western historical frameworks and making it possible to think in strictly comparative ways, employing an abstract model. His work remains vital and intellectually alive, as political science grapples with issues of deconstructionism, postmodern political theory, and interpretive theory. It continues to be relevant for all social scientists concerned with the process by which we construct value-free comparisons that can move across cultures.
Even as Easton promoted the development and application of proper scientific methods of political inquiry that would yield rigorous and reliable knowledge of political phenomena, he also was deeply concerned about the obligation of political scientists to engage urgent issues of public policy and to illuminate disputes about the nature and implications of political values. In his influential 1969 Presidential Address to the American Political Science Association, delivered during the rapidly escalating social and political turmoil of the late 1960s, Easton defended both these commitments with characteristic intellectual force and courage. Easton’s Presidential Address remains among the most important APSA presidential addresses delivered, and it inaugurated an important shift in academic political science. Along with reforms instituted by Easton as president of the American Political Science Association—such as the establishment of the first committees on the status of women and other minorities —Easton’s Presidential Address ushered in a change in APSA orientation, one that arose from a deep discontent with the direction of extant political research. Easton thus lent credibility and support to political scientists who advocated more attention to the discipline’s public responsibilities and to relevant research on contemporary political problems and issues. Such a welcoming response on the part of the APSA “establishment” helped prevent the fracturing of the professional political science community, an outcome suffered by other professional associations.
Although he “retired” from UCI in 1987, David continued to teach classes on empirical political theory, political systems analysis, the foundations of modern political science, and structural analysis of politics until he was 94 years old. A critical figure in building UCI’s Department of Political Science, for nearly 25 years Easton taught the introductory pro-seminar on the history of political science, required of all political science graduate students. In 1997, he received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Research from UCI’s Academic Senate and was named the 2005-06 recipient of the UC system-wide Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award in recognition of his research and scholarly activities during retirement. Prizes named to honor David include UCI’s Easton Award for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Political Science, the David and Sylvia Easton Lecture, established by UCI’s Ethics Center and given every second year for creative, controversial and cutting-edge work in social science that relates to ethics, and the APSA’s David Easton Prize, given by the Foundations of Political Thought Section for a book that “broadens the horizons of contemporary political science by engaging issues of philosophical significance in political life through any of a variety of approaches in the social sciences and humanities.”
Easton is survived by his devoted and loving family: his son Stephen, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University, his daughter-in-law, Caroline, and his two grandchildren, Malcolm (completing his PhD in political science at UC Davis) and Stephanie, David’s full-time care giver and companion during the last years of his life.
Dave’s contributions to political science and his generosity and kindness toward his fellow faculty, particularly junior scholars and students, will make him greatly missed in the profession. A celebration and remembrance of Easton’s life will take place in the fall at UC Irvine. A larger tribute to David and his contribution to political science will appear in this volume next year and in a separate volume being prepared by Kristen Monroe. Anyone interested in sending a tribute to David, or willing to share a personal anecdote about David’s influence —personal or professional —should send them to [email protected].
—Kristen Renwick Monroe, for the department of political science, University of California, Irvine
NOTES
1. Knopf 1953/University of Chicago 1971/1981, translated into five languages.
2. Prentice-Hall 1965, translated into six languages.
3. Wiley 1965/ University of Chicago 1979, translated into five languages.
4. New York: McGraw-Hill, with Jack Dennis.
Gary William Hoskin
Gary William Hoskin, an emeritus associate professor at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and an emeritus professor at the Department of Political Science at the University de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, passed away in Bogota on the afternoon of April 23, 2014.
Gary was born on December 20, 1938, in Wyacondah, a small town in Davis County in southeastern Iowa where his father owned a store. His mother Ruby was a superb cook and early on instilled in Gary a love of fine food. He studied Liberal Arts at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and went on to earn a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a doctorate from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Beginning in 1965, for more than three decades Gary taught courses on comparative and Latin American politics at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He married a colleague in the department, Marilyn (Brookes) Hoskin, and together they had a daughter, Elena.
Gary was a central figure in Buffalo’s department of political science, serving terms as director of undergraduate studies, director of graduate studies, and acting chair. He also served as associate provost of the Faculty of Social Science and Administration. Over the years he mentored many students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as junior professors, and he supervised a number of doctoral dissertations. During his tenure at Buffalo, Gary published a number of books, numerous book chapters, and several articles in such leading journals as The American Journal of Political Science and Comparative Politics. All of his many publications were on Latin American, especially Colombian, politics. Gary was active in the Buffalo Chapter of United University Professions, and he served a term as its vice president. He received a number of fellowships and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the USIA, and several awards from the SUNY Research Foundation. In addition to his many publications, Gary’s research was presented to the profession at many professional conferences (APSA, ASA, MWPSA, IPSA, and the Latin American Studies Association) and at a number of leading universities (London School of Economics, University of California, San Diego, SAIS/Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan). He undertook project reviews for the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he reviewed manuscripts for more than a dozen professional journals and publishers.
While most of Gary’s academic career was spent at UB, he visited Bogota frequently and became a passionate and dedicated student of Colombian politics. Known to some Colombian friends as “the gringo Hoskin,” his four-decade long involvement with Colombia began in the 1960s when he visited the country to do field research for his doctoral dissertation comparing political parties in Colombia and Venezuela. His tireless research led him to produce many publications on Colombia, and he came to be regarded as one of the leading scholars of the country’s complex democratization process, legislature, presidentialism, the party system, public opinion, and elections. In 1995 he was honored by the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they conferred upon him the “Orden de San Carlos” award. The award honors those who have distinguished themselves in service to Colombia and in strengthening cultural ties and relations between Colombia and other nations.
Through his many visits to Bogota his influence was also felt on the founding and early development of Los Andes’ Department of Political Science. Indeed, after 30 years of teaching in Buffalo, Gary returned to live permanently in Bogota in 1997. He took up a position as professor at Los Andes and from 2001 until his retirement in 2006 he served as chair of their political science department. After retirement he continued to visit the Los Andes campus every Tuesday and Thursday to work and eat lunch with colleagues. The university honored him with a memorial service on April 30 and planted an oak tree on its campus in his memory.
As he expressed in his remarks at a huge and joyous birthday party celebrating his 70th year, Gary deeply loved the three important settings of his life: Buffalo, Bogota, and Iowa. In Buffalo, his house was often home to stray graduate students who were struggling to finish their dissertations. He enjoyed Buffalo’s professional sports teams, at various times holding season tickets to both the Buffalo Bills (football) and the Buffalo Sabres (hockey). He was also a loyal St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan. Gary loved excellent food and drink, and enjoyed taking part in weekly gourmet cooking evenings with a group of Colombian friends while in Bogota. He also loved his pet dogs, art, and travel. And he especially cherished his daughter Elena, who frequently joined him in Bogota and on vacations.
Gary was a thoroughly professional comparativist who recognized the importance of primary fieldwork in the development of rigorous understanding in the field. He put these principles to exemplary work in his research and writing on Colombia. These are important legacies. But for us his friends and colleagues, it will be his tranquil demeanor, clear common sense, sharp wit, warm smile, and hearty laugh, that will be most missed. We are all grateful to have been enriched by his life and works in so many ways.
As observed at the memorial service for Gary at Los Andes, those of us who were his colleagues and students will always remember him as a person who was academically honest and perceptive, tremendously generous with his knowledge, and capable of challenging us and pulling us out of our usual ways of thinking in our efforts to understand Colombian politics. As his friends, we enjoyed his generosity, his great sense of humor, and his culinary abilities. We will never forget the strength inherent in his way of being, his simplicity, and the tranquility that accompanied him to the end as well as his enviable lucidity. He left us with a void in our lives and many teachings. Forever, Gary William Hoskin, we honor your memory.
—Munroe Eagles, Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., Donald B. Rosenthal, Claude E. Welch, Jr.,Department of Political Science, University at Buffalo (SUNY)
—Mónica Pachón and Miguel García, Department of Political Science,Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Vincent Lemieux
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing on July 18 of Vincent Lemieux, a great builder of political science in Quebec and Canada, at the age of 81 years. Vincent Lemieux was the last “founding father” of the department of political science at Laval University where he held the title of professor emeritus since 2000. We share the grief felt by his family and relatives, because in a way, we also consider ourselves a little bit like his orphans. Vincent Lemieux loved teaching students; and they liked his teaching. He continued to teach in the department free of charge after his retirement. He trained a record number of doctoral students, many of whom have themselves become university professors, thus making his mark, more than any other, on the Quebec and Canadian political science scene. Through his teaching, he actively contributed to the education of generations of decision makers who have helped develop Quebec society at the social, political, media, and government levels. In 1995 he obtained the Award of Excellence in Teaching from the Faculty of Social Sciences. In 1997, the Canadian Political Science Association established the Vincent Lemieux Prize to honor every two years the best doctoral thesis in political science in Canada.
Vincent Lemieux has contributed enormously to our department, our faculty, and our university through his work in the university community and through his reach outside the university community. He was head of the department of political science from 1967 to 1970. More recently, he has been closely associated with the creation of the Master of Public Affairs (MAP) and the Centre for the Analysis of Public Policy (CAPP), two crown-jewels that are the pride of the department of political science and of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Outside the university, he has been actively involved with the Canadian Political Science Association, of which he was president in 1991–92. He participated in the work of royal commissions Laurendeau-Dunton, Macdonald and Lortie, and he acted as a consultant to many organizations of civil society. Also note that Vincent Lemieux has often worked with the media, le Devoir in particular.
Vincent Lemieux has written more than twenty scholarly books, many of which are considered classics of the discipline, some two hundred articles and chapters in edited volumes and numerous popular texts. True to the structural approach, he thought that in order to understand political institutions, it is necessary to study the relationships linking the actors inside those institutions first, before studying the objective characteristics or the subjective beliefs and attitudes of these actors. The influence of the structural approach is evident in the work on political patronage he published early in his career, especially Parenté et politique that was awarded a certificate from the Canadian Federation of Social Sciences. We find the structural approach implicit in his books on social networks and on public policy analysis. His book Le parti libéral du Québec is a reference for all researchers interested to study the political system of Québec.
Another characteristic of the scientific work of Vincent Lemieux was to link as much as possible theoretical principles with empirical reality in order to enhance the practical significance of his findings. He often concluded his scientific work with recommendations addressed sometimes to policy experts, but also to engaged citizens interested to increase their level of political knowledge. The scientific work of Vincent Lemieux is animated by the desire to explain complex phenomena in nontechnical language so as to enlighten the widest possible audience on the major challenges to democracy today. This is an undeniably attractive feature of this work.
For his accomplishments, he has received, among other awards, the Parizeau medal in 1978, an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa in 1995, the Léon-Gérin Prize in 1998. He had been elevated to the rank of officer of the National Order of Quebec in 2003, and appointed member of the Order of Canada in 2005. The legacy of Vincent Lemieux is impressive. It is our turn to build on that legacy by expanding it.
—François Pétry, directeur, département de science politique, Université Laval
Jewel Limar Prestage
(August 12, 1931–August 1, 2014)
Jewel Limar Prestage, black political science pioneer and mentor extraordinaire, passed away in Houston, Texas on August 1, 2014. Of her many accomplishments in the field of political science, the founding of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS) ranks at the top. In 1968, she called a meeting of black political scientists from throughout the United States to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The meeting in 1969 germinated an organization that 45 years later is still engaging black scholars in teaching, research, mentorship, and community engagement.
Jewel was one of sixteen children, ten of whom lived to adulthood. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school in Alexandria, Louisiana at the age of 16. In 1948, she enrolled at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she studied political science, and graduated summa cum laude in 1951 at the age of 19. At Southern, she met James Jordan Prestage, the man who would become her life partner. After graduation, she attended the University of Iowa where she completed her master’s degree in 1952, and at the age of 22, her PhD in 1954, both in political science. While pursuing her graduate studies, Jewel married James after he returned from military service in Korea.
Jewel’s first teaching job after completing her doctorate was at Prairie View A&M University. She joined the faculty at her alma mater, Southern University, in 1956, rising to department chair, a position she held for 18 years. In 1983, Jewel was appointed dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, where she served until her retirement in 1989. In recognition of her numerous contributions, Southern conferred upon her the status of distinguished professor emeritus.
Jewel’s retirement was short-lived, as she joined the faculty of Prairie View for the second time. She served as professor of political science, and, subsequently, dean of the Benjamin Banneker Honors College. At the time of her retirement from Prairie View in 2002, two of her students had earned doctorates, with another four in progress and other Banneker students having earned advanced degrees in engineering, physics, business, and psychology.
Jewel was actively involved in political activities after Louisiana law was changed to permit her to register to vote. She and her husband joined the Second Ward Voters League, the black political organization in Baton Rouge, where they participated in voter registration efforts. After the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Jewel served on both the board of directors for the Louisiana Board of Education Project and the Voter Education Project in Atlanta, Georgia, a non-profit organization designed to promote voter registration and voter education among newly registered black voters. She helped establish the Louisiana Center to Assist Black Elected Officials, and, as its director, successfully challenged Louisiana’s discriminatory voting procedures and provided political training and technical assistance to newly elected officials.
Jewel also directed her citizen activism toward the critical issue of the poor quality of civic education in elementary and secondary schools of Louisiana. She devoted much of her time and academic energy toward improving civic education through initiatives such as the National Defense Education Act Civics Institute and the Robert A. Taft Seminars for Social Science Teachers. Under these programs, over 500 Louisiana teachers improved their teaching methodology in civic education.
Being a working mother, wife, and an active professor and scholar, Jewel was a role model for women in the profession, especially African American women. She had no female role models during her academic training and she had no black professors in her graduate program. This absence of women and blacks in the field, and the lack of research on gender and race issues, were motivating factors for her research interest in gender and race. She used her research to give visibility to the invaluable contributions of black women. She was the first person to pursue research that focused on black women legislators, and the first to offer the theory of marginality to describe the political behavior of African American women. Her book, A Portrait of Marginality (coauthored with Dr. Marianne Githens), has been described as a classic study in the area of women and politics. She also published “Black Women Officeholders: The Case of State Legislators” in Laurily Epstein’s Women in the Professions. She pioneered early research focusing on the political socialization of black children and established “a political reality thesis of political socialization” which asserts that black children’s political attitudes are grounded in the reality that they experience.
Jewel’s academic interest did not stop at the United States border. She played a role in the academic development of African life and culture by encouraging students across various disciplines to embrace African and global perspectives within their career paths. She invited numerous African leaders to the university campus and community, expanding her students’ worldviews. Jewel was also an enthusiastic supporter of students’ preparation and participation in Operation Crossroads Africa.
Despite her commitment to NCOBPS, Jewel found time to engage actively with other associations of the discipline and in the development of longstanding professional relationships. She served as an officer and on the executive council of several of the nation’s esteemed political science organizations, including the American Political Science Association (APSA) (executive council), the Southern Political Science Association (executive council, secretary, vice-president, and president), the Southwestern Political Science Association (vice president and acting president), and she was the first African American and first female president of the Southwestern Social Science Association. She also regularly participated as a panelist during the various annual conferences.
The Prestage-Fenno Fund was established by APSA to honor Prestage for her role in developing the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. This fund promotes and supports expanded opportunities for minority students contemplating advanced training in political science through programs such as the Bunche Institute. The Policy Studies Organization and the Southwestern Political Science Association have also honored Jewel by creating awards in her name to recognize outstanding academic achievement in the areas of race, gender, and politics. At the 2002 annual NCOBPS meeting, she was honored as a founder of NCOBPS and for her dedication and service at historically black colleges and universities through the establishment of the Jewel Limar Prestage Faculty Mentorship Award. This year, NCOBPS awarded Jewel with an Honorary Lifetime Membership in recognition of her lifetime of service and dedication.
Through her leadership and mentoring, a generation of students received academic preparation that led them to graduate and professional schools. Those students, known affectionately as “Jewel’s Jewels,” represent approximately 45 PhDs and over 200 lawyers, judges, governmental officials, commissioned military officers, and business executives. Jewel aggressively sought financial assistance to support graduate and professional study for her students. Despite underfunded programs, Jewel identified resources to expose her students to experiential and academic programs and activities throughout the United States and abroad that advanced their career paths and professional development. She created a mentorship network by connecting new graduates with former students who were established in their professions and continued to open doors for her students well after they graduated.
Jewel Prestage’s life was clearly an example of a life well lived. We, her students, are left to preserve her legacy of service, scholarship, teaching, and mentoring through our work. We will miss the long phone calls with her as she inquired about our work and about our families or gave us assignments to complete. We always knew to set aside at least an hour for a Jewel call. Even when we told her that we were in a hurry, she did not rush off the phone because after all, no conversation concluded without a report about the wellbeing or progress of her other “Jewels” and directives to connect with those coming behind you who might need your encouragement. Although we joked about the calls, we valued them because with each call, we felt the love that she had for us. Through each phone call, she was polishing her “Jewels” to be the valuable gems she knew we could be.
Throughout her career, Jewel was supported in her various endeavors by her husband of 60 years, Dr. James Prestage, a biologist who served on the faculty at Southern University and Dillard University and as a Chancellor at Southern. Despite her many career accomplishments, Jewel would definitely acknowledge her five children, Terri Prestage-White, James Grady Prestage, Eric Warren Prestage, Karen Prestage Washington, and Jay Wilkins Prestage, as her proudest accomplishment.
—Elsie Scott, Howard University
—Shiela Harmon Martin, University of the District of Columbia
Thomas P. Trombetas
Thomas P. Trombetas, emeritus professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach(CSULB), passed away in Greece on November 2, 2013, at the age of 88, after a long illness. A long-time member of the CSULB political science department, he joined the department in 1961 and retired in 1989. He specialized in comparative government, especially the politics of Western European governments and of his native Greece; Greco-Turkish relations; and Roman Jurisprudence.
Trombetas was born in Athens, Greece, on May 16, 1925, and completed a five-year program in law at the University of Athens in 1948. After a year of combat military service in the Greek Civil War, he practiced law for a time in Greece and then, in 1951, began graduate studies in public policy and political science as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Washington. He received his PhD (in political science) from the University of Washington in 1962, after completing a dissertation on “The Problem of Political Change in Greece and Turkey, 1945–1960.”
An institutionalist who emphasized the role of structure in the shaping of the political process, Trombetas was also committed to democracy and majority rule. The politics of his native country, which he visited often, remained his most continuing preoccupation. In 1966 he published “Consensus and Cleavage: Party Alignment in Greece, 1945–1965,” in Parliamentary Affairs, XIX (July 1966), 295–311. Subsequently he analyzed Greece’s accession to the European Union in “The Political Dimensions of Greece’s Accession to the EC: Commitment or Retrogression?” Australian Journal of Politics and History, XXIX (April 1983), 63–74 (republished in Annual Editions: Comparative Politics 84/85, edited by Christian Soe [Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1984], 124–131).
A second research focus for Trombetas was Greek and Turkish approaches to the Cyprus question, on which tensions between two NATO alliance members have persisted to this day. His chief writing on this subject was “The Republic of Cyprus: A Federation? The Utility of Structural Solutions,” which appeared in an unedited volume, The Cyprus Dilemma: Options for Peace (New York: Institute for Mediterranean Affairs, 1967), 7-34. This essay critiqued the federation solution to reconcile Greek and Turkish Cypriote relations and advocated instead “a sovereign unitary state functioning along the lines of the majority-minority concept.” (Trombetas also authored a series of tables and charts with data about Cyprus appended to this volume; an essay with an opposing point of view endorsing the federation concept for Cyprus, by Kemal Karpat, then of New York University, was also included.)
A third area of research interest for Trombetas was jurisprudence, which he taught to undergraduates along with comparative government at CSULB. In 1973 his essay, “Natural Law and the Modern World,” was included in Xenion: Festschrift für Pan. J. Zepos, edited by E. von Caemmerer, I (Athens: Katsikalis, 1973).
Upon his retirement in 1989, Trombetas was given a Distinguished Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award by CSULB, attesting to the quality of his research and his teaching.
—Barry H. Steiner, professor of political science, California State University, Long Beach
Paul P. Van Riper
Paul P. Van Riper, scholar, teacher, administrator, and community activist, passed away from natural causes in Colorado on July 11, 2014 at age 97. Paul Van Riper’s multifaceted career spanned 70+ years. His teaching career included posts at Northwestern University, Cornell, and Texas A&M. He also held visiting positions at George Washington University, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, the University of Strathclyde (Scotland), the University of Michigan, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Utah. In 1970, Van Riper became head of the political science department at Texas A&M, one year after the department was separated from the history department. He “retired” from the faculty for the first time in 1981 but then returned to teach part time in the political science department and the Bush School of Government until 2008. Under his leadership the department grew from 13 faculty members to 41, and during his tenure the behavioral approach was introduced to political science at Texas A&M.
Van Riper is the author of two foundational works in public administration – History of the United States Civil Service (1958) and The American Federal Executive (1963) coauthored with W. Lloyd Warner, Norman H. Martin, and Orvis F. Collins, and numerous articles in professional journals. History of the United States Civil Service is still considered the definitive history of the merit system in the United States bridging the historical contributions of Leonard White and David Rosenbloom. The American Federal Executive remains the most extensive analysis of government and business elites in the United States. In 1990, he received the Dwight Waldo Award from the American Society for Public Administration for lifetime contribution to the literature of public administration. In 2001, the American Society for Public Administration created the Paul P. Van Riper Award to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to research, teaching, and service in public administration. Within the field of public administration, Van Riper was known especially for his encyclopedic knowledge of the field. Paul Pritchard Van Riper was born on July 29, 1916 in Laporte, Indiana. His mother was a teacher and his father was both superintendent of instruction for the public schools and a local partisan activist foreshadowing Paul’s own intellectual interest in political science and the administration of public programs. Paul was the valedictorian of his high school class and attended DePauw University on a Rector Scholarship majoring in history with a minor in social science.
Van Riper received his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1947, majoring in public administration. His dissertation, written under the direction of Leonard White, was on the history of the US Civil Service. While at Chicago, Van Riper became a charter member of the American Society for Public Administration.
Graduate school was interrupted by World War II and Paul joined the US Army Quartermaster Corps, initially serving as an officer in a black platoon (the Army was segregated at the time) and eventually deploying to France as a post D-Day logistics officer in France. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Government for his service. Van Riper remained in the Army Reserve after the war, eventually attaining the rank of Lt. Colonel in the army reserves.
In 1952, Paul joined the faculty at the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration at Cornell University, at the time the first generic school of management, training individuals for careers in both business and government. He had an active role in the administration of both the school and the university, serving as director of the PhD program for the school and secretary of the faculty both for the school and the university. He was the chief administrative officer for the Cornell Constituent Assembly tasked with reorganizing the University in 1969–70.
Community service played a major role in Paul Van Riper’s life. He was an active member of Beta Theta Pi social fraternity and served on its national board of directors, as national vice president and for two years as its chief administrative officer. He served as a member of the board of directors of the Brazos Valley Community Action Agency, president of the Bryan-College Station Rotary Club, an active member and officer of the Brazos County Historical Commission, president (and a founder) of Citizens for Historical Preservation (now the Brazos Heritage Society), and a member and secretary of the Advisory Council for the Brazos Valley Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). Paul’s interest in historic preservation was incorporated into his personal life. He and his recently deceased wife Dorothy purchased and restored multiple historic houses in Bryan and in College Station.
In a coverpiece for a published oral history project on Van Riper, former President George H. W. Bush says “Paul’s belief in the integrity of civil and community service has served as the foundation for bringing together public administration scholars and practitioners. He believes that public administration is about practicing management, not just teaching it; that it is about serving your country; and that it is about making community service central to your life and work.”
—Carrie Kilpatrick, department of political science, Texas A&M University
