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| Current Position Manning J. Dauer Eminent Scholar in Political Science, University of Florida, 1995-present Director, Program for the Study of Political Institutions and Societal Change, UF, 1995-present Previous Academic Appointments Assistant/Associate Professor, University of Texas-Austin, 1972-80 Professor, Indiana University-Bloomington, 1980-86 Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for the Study of American Politics, University of Colorado, 1986-95 Educational Background Midwestern State University, 1964-68 B.A., History/Government, 1968 (summa cum laude) Tulane University, 1968-69 Graduate work in political science University of Minnesota, 1969-72 Ph. D., Political Science, 1972. Advisers: William H. Flanigan and
Edwin Fogelman
Fields of Doctoral Concentration: Comparative Political
Institutions and Behavior
Topical Specialties: Public Opinion and Elections; Political Parties; Legislative Politics; Legislative-Executive Relations Area Specialties: United States; Western Europe; Developing Areas
Political Theory - Subspecialty: Contemporary
Political Theory
Research Methods - Subspecialties: Quantitative Methods; Research Design Fellowships, Major Grants, and Professional Honors NDEA Fellowship, 1968-69 Ford Fellowship, 1971-72 Congressional Fellowship, American Political Science Association, 1974-75 Hoover National Fellowship, Stanford University, 1984-85 Outstanding Doctoral Graduate of 1988, Political Science, University of Minnesota University Fellowship, University of Colorado, 1992-93 Outstanding Division Alumnus of 1994, Midwestern State University Wilson Center Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2003-4 NSF Grant, 2006-2007: Co-PI, $127, 315: Analyzing 2006 Nicaraguan Elections Teaching/Service/Writing Awards/Special Honors Teaching Excellence Award, 1976, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UT-Austin American Political Science Association Phi Sigma Alpha Award for Best Paper: Finalist, 1977 Jean Holloway Teaching Excellence Award Finalist and Honorable Mention, 1978, Ex-Students Association, University of Texas-Austin Circle Teaching Excellence Award, Indiana University-Bloomington, Finalist: 1982, 1983: voted by graduating seniors Burlington Northern Teaching Excellence Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Recipient: 1989, University of Colorado at Boulder Social Science Writing Award, College of Arts and Sciences; Recipient: 1992, University of Colorado at Boulder Faculty Superior Achievement Award, University-wide Recipient, University of Florida, 1998 Lawrence C. Dodd Scholarships in Political Science: inaugurated in Spring, 2001 at Indiana University, endowed by former student Tony Sloan Outstanding Doctoral Mentoring and Dissertation Adviser Award, University-wide Recipient UF, 2006-07. Teacher-Scholar of the Year, University-wide Recipient, UF, 2007: UF’s highest faculty honor Direction of Doctoral Dissertations Fourteen Dissertations Completed at Texas, Indiana and Colorado Thirteen Dissertations Completed and Ten in Progress at Florida Teaching Responsibilities at the University of Florida Scope and Epistemologies of Political Science: Required of all entering doctoral students. Introduces students to the development and character of political science as an academic discipline and to the epistemological debates within political science. Taught approximately sixteen times at Colorado and Florida Empirical Theories of Politics: An advanced graduate seminar that introduces students to the construction and use of ‘empirical theories’ in political inquiry. In the process, the course covers foundation and illustrative literature (drawn from across the discipline) on social choice theory, social structure theory, social learning theory, and socio-cultural evolution, as well as variations on these thematic perspectives. Taught five times at Florida. American Political Institutions: The core graduate seminar required of all majors and minor doctoral students in the field. Taught regularly at Colorado-Boulder and once at Florida Congressional Politics: An advanced graduate seminar introducing students to the topic. Taught Repeatedly throughout my career, usually every other year. American Legislative Development: An advanced graduate seminar introducing students to the topic, focused on the U.S. Congress. A new course that I have taught once. Legislative Research Methods: A new ‘hands-on’ course that introduces graduate students to research methods, research design and research engagement in the field of legislative studies. Book Series Editor Transforming American Politics Series, Westview Press, 1987-present (Forty-two volumes). Service to the Profession: Selected Items President, Southwestern Political Science Association, 1980; Vice President 1979; Program Chair in 1978.
Board Member, Legislative Studies Section of American Political Science
Association (APSA), 1985-1995
Section Program Chair, “Legislative Studies Section,” APSA, 1986Editor, “Extension of Remarks,” Legislative Studies Section Newsletter, 1986-1995 Member, APSA Trust and Development Fund Committee, 1994-97 Section Program Chair, “Legislative Politics,” Southern Political Science Association, 1997 Member, Executive Council, APSA, 2002-2004 Member, Elections Committee, APSA, 2003-2004 Member, Executive Council, Southern Political Science Association, 2003-2006 Chair, Nominations Committee, Legislative Studies Section of the APSA, 2003-2005 Chair, Nominations Committee, Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior Section of the APSA, 2005-2006
Chair, Nominations Committee, Southern Political Science Association,
2007-2008Section Head, Legislative Studies Section, APSA, 2007-2009. Member, Best Paper Award Committee, Midwest Political Science Association, 2007-08 Conference and Speaker Series Direction Co-Chair, with Richard Schott of Organizing Committee, LBJ Symposium on Congress and the Presidency, University of
Texas-Austin, November, 1977
Co-Chair, with Stanley Werbow, Organizing Committee, LBJ Symposium on
Government andThe Humanities, University of
Texas-Austin, November, 1978.
Co-Director, with Leroy Rieselbach and Gerald Wright, “Conference
on Congress and Public Policy,” Indiana University, 1983
Director, American Politics Center Speaker Series, University of
Colorado-Boulder, 1987-1994Co-Director, with Cal Jillson,
Conference on the Dynamics of American Politics, University of
Colorado, 1992
Originator and Chair, Dauer Guest Lecture Series Committee, University
of Florida, 1995-98;member, 1999-present.
Originator and Chair, Departmental Distinguished Scholar Lecture and
Awards Banquet Committee, University of Florida,
1996-99; member/partial funder, 1999-present
Advisor and (Partial) Funder, Various Faculty and Graduate Student
Conferences, Political Science Department, UF, 1995-2008
Selected Service Activities: University of Florida (1995-2002): Director, Program for the Study of Political Institutions and Societal Change, 1995-2007 Member, Graduate Program Revision Committee, Department of Political Science, 1995-96 Member, University Senate, 1996-8 Member, Leadership/Chair Advisory Committees, Department of Political Science, 1995-2005 Member, Graduate Recruitment Committee, Department of Political Science, 1995-2005 Chair/member, American, International Relations and Political Theory Search Committees, 1997-99, 2001, 2005 Member, Department Promotion and Tenure Committee, 1997-99; Chair, 1997-98 Member, Dean’s PEP Committee, Fall, 1998 Chair, Department Committee on Anderson Hall Renovation, 1998-2000 Chair, American Field, 1999-2006 Chair, Department Merit Committee,2000-2001; member, 1998-1999; 1999—2000 Member, Dean’s Advisory Committee on Tenure and Promotion, 2002-03; 2005-06; Committee Co-Chair, 2006-07, 2007-08
Chair, Recruitment Committee for Ehrlich Eminent Scholar Chair in
Political Science, 2006-07;Ex officio member, 2007-08
Member, Dean’s Committee on Senior Professor Pay Adjustment, Co-Chair,
2008Member, Graduate School Committee to Select 2007-08 Doctoral Mentoring Awardees, 2008 Member, Provost’s Committee to Select 2007-08 University-wide Teacher Scholar of Year, 2008 Books and Monographs Congress and Public Policy. Morristown, New Jersey: General Learning Press, 1975. Coalitions in Parliamentary Government. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976. Japanese edition, 1977. Congress Reconsidered. Co-edited with Bruce I. Oppenheimer. New York: Praeger, 1977; Congressional Quarterly Press
(Washington, D. C) has published seven subsequent
editions, all composed of
original essays: 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005.
The ninth edition is under
contract.
The Presidency and Congress: A Changing Balance of Power. Co-edited with William S. Livingston and Richard L. Schott.
Austin, Texas: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, 1979.
Congress and the Administrative State. Co-authored with Richard Schott. New York: John Wiley, 1979.
Congress and Policy Change. Co-edited with Gerald Wright and Leroy Rieselbach. New York: Agathon Press, 1986.
The Dynamics of American Politics. Co-edited with Calvin Jillson. Boulder , CO.: Westview Press, 1994.
New Perspectives on American Politics. Co-edited with Calvin Jillson. Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Press,
1994.
Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990-2001. Co- authored with Leslie E. Anderson.
The University of Chicago Press. 2005.
Thinking about Congress: Essays on Congressional Change. Forthcoming from Routledge Press, 2009.
Articles and Chapters in Books “Committee Integration in the Senate: A Comparative Analysis.” Journal of Politics, November, 1972. “Party Coalitions in Multiparty Parliaments.” American Political Science Review, September, 1974. “Roll Call Measurement of Party Integration.” With John C. Pierce. Polity, Spring, 1975. “The Emergence of Party Government in the House of Representatives.” DEA News, (A Publication of the American
Political Science Association), Summer, 1976.
"Texas: The Case of the Wrangling Professors.” With Robert Lineberry, John Sinclair and Alan Sagar. In The Making of Congressmen,
edited by Alan Clem. North Scituate, Mass.:
Duxburry Press, 1976.
“The House of Representatives and Institutional Change: An Analysis of Internal Organizational Reform.” A Report prepared for
the Advisory Committee on National Growth Processes,
the National Commission on
Supplies and Shortages, Washington, 1976; issued by the
U. S. Government Printing Office,
1977.
“The House in Transition.” With Bruce Oppenheimer, in Congress Reconsidered, (full citation above) 1977.
“Congress and the Quest for Power.” In Congress Reconsidered, 1977. A revised version appears in Discovery Magazine, The
University of Texas, June 1978. Original reprinted in:
Studies of Congress, edited
by Glenn R. Parker (CQ Press, 1985); American Government: Readings
and Cases, edited by Peter Woll (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman, 1990, 1993); and Classics in Congressional Politics, edited by Herbert F. Weisberg, Eric S. Heberlig and Lisa M. Campoli (New York: Longman, 1999). “Congressional Voting Patterns: The Question of Regionalism and Energy.” With Sally Lopreato and Fred Smoller. Monograph, the
Center for Energy Studies, the University of Texas at
Austin, 1978.
“Congress and the Cycles of Power.” Society, Vol. 16, #1, November, 1978; revised and expanded version appears in
The Presidency and
Congress, (full citation above) 1979.
“The Presidency, Congress and the Cycles of Power.” In The Post-Imperial Presidency, edited by Vincent David. New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1979.
“The Expanding Roles of the House Democratic Whip System.” Congressional Studies, Vol. VI (Winter, 1979).
“The House in Transition: from Albert to O’Neill.” Co-authored with Bruce Oppenheimer, in Congress Reconsidered, 1981
“Congress, the Constitution and the Crisis of Legitimation.” In Congress Reconsidered, 1981. “Majority Party Leadership and Partisan Vote Gathering: The House Democratic Whip System.” Co-authored with Terry Sullivan.
In Understanding
Congressional Leadership, edited by
Frank H. Mackaman. Washington, D.
C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1981.
“Coalition-Building by Party Leaders.” In Congress and the Presidency Journal (Fall, 1983). “The Study of Cabinet Durability: Introduction and Commentary.” Comparative Political Studies, July, 1984.
“The Elusive Congressional Mandate: The 1984 Election and Its Aftermath.” In Congress Reconsidered, 3rd Edition,
1985.
“The House in Transition: Partisanship and Opposition.” With Bruce Oppenheimer, in Congress Reconsidered, 3rd Edition.
“Bicameralism in Congress: The Changing Partnership.” With Edward Carmines, in Congress Reconsidered, 3rd Edition.
“The Cycles of Legislative Change.” In Political Science: the Science of Politics, edited by Herbert Weisberg . New York:
Agathon Press, 1985.
“A Theory of Congressional Cycles: Solving the Puzzle of Change.” In Congress and Policy Change, full citation in
books, above, 1986.
“Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government and the Modern Congress.” In Congress and the Presidency Journal. Autumn,
1987.
“The Rise of the Technocratic Congress.” In Richard Harris and Sidney Milkis, editors, Remaking American Politics.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1988.
“Micro-Macro Perspectives on Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Section Newsletter, Fall, 1988. “Perspectives on the 1988 Congressional Elections.” With Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 4th Edition,
1989.
“Consolidating Power in the House.” With Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 4th Edition. “The New Congress: Fluidity and Change.” With Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 4th Edition,
1989.
“Congress, the Executive and the American Experience: A Transformational Perspective.” In Divided Democracy. Edited
by James A. Thurber. Washington, D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly, 1991.
“The Political Mastery of U. S. Senators.” Legislative Studies Section Newsletter, Fall, 1992. “Perspectives on the 1992 Congressional Elections.” Co-authored with Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 5th
Edition, 1993.
“Maintaining Order in the House: The Struggle of Institutional Equilibrium.” Co-authored with Bruce Oppenheimer, in Congress Reconsidered, 5th
Edition, 1993.
“Congress and the Politics of Renewal: Redressing the Crisis of Legitimation.” In Congress Reconsidered, 5th Edition,
1993.
“Conversations on the Study of American Politics.” Co-authored with Cal Jillson. In The Dynamics of American Politics,
1994.
“Political Learning and Political Change: Understanding Political Development Across Time.” In The Dynamics of American Politics,
1994.
“Reassessing American Politics.” Co-authored with Cal Jillson. In New Perspectives on American Politics, l994.
“The Rise of the Modern State: 1932-1964.” In The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1995.
“The New American Politics: Reflections on the Early 1990s.” In The New American Politics. Edited by Bryan Jones. Boulder,
CO.: Westview Press, 1995.
“Placing Congress in Theoretical Time.” Legislative Studies Section Newsletter. December, 1995. “Revolution in the House: Testing the Limits of Party Government.” Co-authored with Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 6th
Edition, 1997.
“Congress and the Emerging Order: Conditional Party Government or Constructive Partisanship?” Co-Authored with Bruce
Oppenheimer. In Congress
Reconsidered, 6th
Edition, 1997. “A House Divided.” Co-authored with Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 7th Edition, 2000.
“Congress and the Emerging Order: Assessing the 2000 Elections.” Co-Authored with Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered,
7th Edition, 2000.
“ReEnvisioning Congress: Theoretical Perspectives on Congressional Change.” In Congress Reconsidered, 7th Edition.
2000.
“Comments on David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection,” in PS: Political Science and Politics, Volume XXXIV
Number 2, March 2001, pp. 262-264.
“Comportamiento Electoral y Democracies en Nicaragua, 1990-2001.” With Leslie E. Anderson. America Latina Hoy 30
(April 2002). ALH is a leading social science journal in Spain.
“Nicaragua Votes: The Elections of 2001.” With Leslie E. Anderson. The Journal of Democracy. Volume 13, July,
2002.
“Making Sense Out of Our Exceptional Senate.” In U.S. Senate Exceptionalism. Edited by Bruce I. Oppenheimer. Columbus, Ohio:
Ohio State University Press, 2002.
“Entrapped in the Narrative of War.” In Transforming the American Polity: The Presidency of George W. Bush and the War on
Terrorism. Edited by Richard Conley. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Forthcoming: fall, 2004. “Democratie Envers et Contre Tout.” With Leslie E. Anderson. Revue Le Banquet (Paris, France). Fall, 2004.
“Prologue: Perspectives on the 2004 Congressional Elections.” With Bruce Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered, 8th
edition.
“A Decade of Republican Control: the House of Representatives, 1995-2005.” With Bruce I. Oppenheimer. In Congress Reconsidered,
8th edition.
“ReEnvisioning Congress: Theoretical Perspectives on Congressional Change – 2004.” Single- authored. In Congress Reconsidered, 8th
edition.
Book-length Research Projects Underway: Congress and the Polarity Paradox: Legislative Conflict and Policy Productivity, 1857-2008. With Scot Schraufnagel. The thesis: the capacity of Congress to enact landmark legislation depends on the organizational structuring and regulation of conflict within the institution. Too much institutional conflict can inhibit landmark productivity – but so can too little conflict. Moderate legislative conflict fosters landmark productivity. It does so by helping insure meaningful policy contestation among political parties and members over major policy problems while maintaining contestation within civil parameters that enable deliberative processes to proceed to collective and binding statutory decisions. The book will test this thesis by examining all Congresses from the advent of the current two party system in 1857 to the present. The research is based on two original data sources. We determine the rise and fall of incivility within Congress by counting the percentage of articles published by the New York Times and the Washington Post on the Congress that discuss incidents of congressional incivility. This data is collected by Congress from 1851 to the present for the New York Times and 1879 to the present for the Post. Articles are coded according to a variety of criteria such as the partisan character of the uncivil act (inter-party, intra-party, non-party), the chamber involved (House, Senate, both), and the policy issue involved. For our indicator of landmark productivity we have gathered an original compilation of Landmark acts by counting all congressional acts discussed in fifteen major publications. These publications include congressional histories and encyclopedias, presidential histories and encyclopedias, American histories and encyclopedias, and public policy encyclopedias. This project flows from my year as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2003-04). The Deepening of Nicaraguan Democracy: The Interplay between National and Local Politics in A Developing Democracy. With Leslie E. Anderson. The thesis: amidst the tendency of national elections and governing regimes in many new democracies to ‘swing wildly’ and inconclusively between extreme neoliberal and socialist visions of governance, local elections and municipal government are vehicles for the emergence of a moderate ‘policy politics’ that helps deepen citizens’ understanding of, involvement with and commitment to democracy. Local level politics can do so by focusing citizens on the concrete performance of local elected governments in addressing public needs, fostering retrospective vote-choice that helps craft responsive and competitive party government, and moving citizens beyond preoccupation with the prospective visionary ideals of partisan regimes and toward concerns with the actual policy performance of parties-in-government. In the process, local politics serves as a training ground for democratic citizenship while also helping generate experienced democratic politicians who can move on to service in national leadership positions. The research and ultimate book will test this thesis by contrasting citizen involvement in and assessments of national and local politics in Nicaragua roughly from 2000 to 2009. The work will be based on surveys conducted during the 2001 national elections (funded by the Dauer Chair at Florida), on six nation-wide surveys we conducted during and after the 2006 national elections (funded by an NSF grant), on ongoing municipal-level fieldwork by Anderson, and on public opinion surveys we plan to conduct amidst the 2008 municipal elections. A new NSF grant to fund these surveys is pending. Legislative Mastery in an Age of Reform: Institutional Upheavals and Career Transformations in the California and Indiana State Legislatures, 1983-2010. During the 1980s I worked with two research teams to gather extensive interviews with California and Indiana state legislators probing their goals as legislators, the skills and behavior they saw as appropriate to goal achievement, their assessments of the legislators who were most effective in goal achievement, the nature of their personal (home style) efforts in re-election campaigns and constituency relations, and their personal activities and use of time within the legislature. I intended the contrast between legislators in these two settings to help illuminate the differences between professional (California) and citizen (Indiana) legislatures and also to speak to various concerns such as legislators’ goals, career cycles, home styles and strategies of legislative mastery. As I began analysis of these interviews, Indiana enacted major electoral and institutional changes designed to move its legislature and legislators towards a more professionalized orientation to legislative politics while California enacted term limits and related changes designed to move its legislature and members toward a less professional and more citizen-oriented orientation. These developments created a rare opportunity to look at changes across time in the careerist attitudes, perceptions and behavior of legislators in two quite contrasting institutional settings and amidst quite divergent and countervailing types of reform movements. Serendipitously, the reform movements in California and Indiana had offered me a kind of natural if unplanned experiment by which to assess the extent to which reforms designed to change member attitudes and behavior really succeed in doing so. In the 1990s I put two new research teams in the field in each state, using the same interview instrument (with some changes and additions in questions) to gauge post-reform attitudes and behavior. While these interviews went smoothly in Indiana, chaos reined in the California legislature throughout the 1990s. Eventually extensive interviews were conducted in both settings, but I decided that, at least in the case of California a full set of additional interviews was necessary after term limits had become more routinized. I currently have an experienced researcher conducting those interviews in the California legislature. I probably will put a final research team into Indiana in the 2009-2010 period, thereby allowing comparisons of legislators in the two states across three decades. In the end I should have interviews with the majority of legislators in each chamber in each state during one term in the mid-to-late 1980s, one term in the mid-to-late 1990s, and one term in the mid-to-late 2000s. Initial findings suggest that the upheavals in each legislature did greatly alter careerist perceptions and behavior, particularly in California but even amidst the less dramatic institutional changes in Indiana. Many changes, however, were not the ones intended by reformers, particularly in California. Additionally, the study will speak in some powerful ways to issues of member goal pursuit and career behavior that dominate the study of American legislatures. Funds for this project have come from small university grants at Indiana and research funds made available to me as Director of the American Politics Center at Colorado and through the Dauer Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida. Additionally, the research in California was aided by my year as a Hoover National Fellow at Stanford, during which I oversaw the initial phase of interviews in the California State Legislature. I hope to have this project finished and published within the six to eight years.
Thinking about Congress:
Essays on Congressional Change By Lawrence Dodd Forthcoming from Routledge Press, 2009
*Foreword: Eric Schickler, University of California-Berkeley
I. Introduction
*1. Congress as
Public Mirror: Why We Study Congress
II. Member Goals and Institutional Context 2. Congress and the
Quest for Power: 1977
3. Congress, the
Constitution and the Crisis of Legitimation: 1981
4. Bicameralism in
Congress: The Changing Partnership, with Edward
Carmines -- 1985
III. Cyclical Rhythms, Agenda Shifts and Era Transformations 5. The Cycles of
Legislative Change: Building a Dynamic Model: 1986a
6. The Theory of
Congressional Cycles: Solving the Puzzle of Change:
1986b
7. Woodrow Wilson’s
Congressional Government and the Modern Congress
-1987
IV.
Idea Innovation, Social Learning and Political Renewal
8. Congress,
The Presidency and the American Experience: A Transformational
Perspective – 1991
9. Congress and the Politics of Renewal: Redressing the Crisis of Legitimation – 1993 10. The New American Politics: Reflections on the Early 1990s -- 1995 V.
The Multiple Dimensions and Processes of Change
11.
Re-Envisioning Congress: Theoretical Perspectives on Congressional
Change – 2001
12. Making Sense Out of Our Exceptional Senate – 2002 *13. Congress Across the Space/Time Continuum: Theoretical Unities and Behavioral Disjunctures – 2009 VI.
Conclusion
*14. The Power of Theory:
Clarifications, Explanations, Interpretations
*New Essay
Selected Service Activities at Previous Universities: University of Texas-Austin (1972-80) Department Executive Committee,
1973-74, 1977078, 1978-79
Department Undergraduate Adviser, 1975-76 Chair, Graduate Financial Aid Committee, 1976-78 Chair, American Political Institutions Field, 1976-80 Member, Social and Behavioral Sciences Faculty Council, 1977-78 Member, University Research Institute Review Committee, 1978 Chair, University Symposium Planning Committee, 1978-79; Member,1977-1979, Member, Center for the Study of Congress, LBJ Presidential Library, 1977-80 Indiana University-Bloomington (1980-86) Member, Graduate Studies
Committee, 1980-8, 1985-86
Member, Graduate Financial Aid Selection Committee, 1980-84, 1985-86 Chair, American Politics field, 1982-84, 1985-86 Chair and Member, various department recruitment committees, 1980-84, 1985-86 University of Colorado-Boulder (1986-1995) Director, Center for the Study of
American Politics, 1986-1995
Executive Committee Member, Political Science, 1986-89, 1989-91 Member, Graduate Curriculum Committee, Political Science, 1986-88 Member, Merit System Review Committee, Political Science, 1988-90 Chair, Member, Various Department Recruitment Committees, 1986-93 University Four Campus Committee on the Graduate School, 1988-94 Vice Chancellor’s Committee on Associate Professor Promotion, 1990-91 Member, University Program Review Panel, 1991-93 Professional References:
Personal Addresses: Lawrence C. Dodd Email: ldodd@polisci.ufl.edu Department of Political Science Home phone: 352 485 1971 234 Anderson Hall P.O. Box 117325 University of Florida Gainesville, Florida 32611 352 392 0262 (leave message) 352 392 8127 (fax) Academic year address: Summer address (May thru early August): 14827 NW 24th Street 5171 N. 109th Street Gainesville, FL 32609 Longmont, Colorado 80501 352 485 1971 303 828 3464 |
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1992 Social Science Writing Award
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Colorado at Boulder
Lawrence C. Dodd, "Congress, the Presidency, and the American Experience: A Transformational Perspective
CITATION
Lawrence Dodd argues convincingly that scholars of American politics must transcend traditional theoretical approaches if they are truly to understand American politics. The established canon of scholarship on American politics assumes the existence of an essentially unchanging context; it assumes that political actors calculate their short-term self-interest in terms of specific and constant preferences about the desired outcome of politics; and it then predicts the future of American politics based on assumptions of constant context and rational short-term decision-making. Dodd rejects both the existence of unchanging contexts and the long-term predominance of rational decision-making; he argues that such assumptions produce faulty predictions, induce a false sense of certainty, and generate dangerous and misguided efforts at political control.
Dodd emphasizes, instead, the dynamic qualities of context and a
‘metarational’
process of political decision-making. He argues that political
participants,
while often entranced by short-term pursuit of fixed beliefs and
preferences,
ultimately reconstruct their world views in order to adjust to a
changing
context. Such metarational decision-making, which occurs through a
cyclical
process of belief rigidification, political crisis and intellectual
transformation,
empowers political participants to recreate their political world in
ways
that are appropriate to an ever-changing context. Dodd illustrates this
cyclical process with a brief survey of United States political
history.
He then calls on scholars to recognize the dynamic, unpredictable and
metarational
character of political life and thereby to accept their responsibility,
as interpreters of an unfolding reality, for hindering or facilitating
political transformation and popular self-governance. Dodd’s essay is
thus
a powerful combination of theoretical inquiry, specific application of
theory, and socially conscious and compassionate scholarship.
1998 Superior Accomplishment Award
University-Wide Recipient
Academic Affairs
University of Florida
The embodiment of selfless commitment to departmental life, Lawrence Dodd has demonstrated energy and creativity in providing the leadership and fostering the teamwork necessary to build the Political Science Department into a top-tier program. As an Eminent Scholar, the Manning Dauer Chair in Political Science could have rested on the low teaching requirements of his position and taken advantage of the resources that come with the endowed chair to further his career only. Instead, he has exceeded everyone’s hopes in sharing the resources and his extraordinary abilities in order to improve the department and its graduate program. Rather than teach the minimal two graduate seminars required of an Eminent Scholar, Dodd initiated and led the revision of the department’s core doctoral program and teaches two required core graduate courses as well as an additional seminar. His generosity has extended to the use of Dauer funds to help sponsor the 1997 Convocation Speaker for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; to create and fund a Guest Lecture Series in the department that brings world-class scholars to visit extensively with students and faculty; to create and help fund the department’s annual spring Distinguished Scholar Dinner and Lecture; and to support a variety of related department activities, including extensive funding for graduate students. Professor Dodd also supervises far more than the average number of graduate students, and goes above and beyond the call of duty in administering to their intellectual life and needs. In addition, while fulfilling numerous other service duties within the department and university, he also maintains his active and cutting-edge scholarly career. Thus in the past year he co-produced the sixth edition of Congress Reconsidered, the most widely used book on Congress in the nation, and co-authored the draft of a lengthy monograph, Learning Democracy, focused on the coming of electoral politics in Nicaragua. By fostering a sense of community and esprit de corps and demonstrating a personal sense of caring, wisdom and sensitivity, while also pursuing his broad-ranging scholarly and professional commitments, Lawrence Dodd has contributed immeasurably to the building of the Political Science Department and has garnered widespread support from faculty and students for his receipt of this well-earned honor.