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| 2007/02/16 20:17:37瀏覽1467｜回應1｜推薦3 | |
幾位學弟提到上立法論的課，因而想起長期在台大執教此課的朱志宏老師。朱老師得年56歲（1944-2000），他在課堂上常提到的與他亦師亦友的柏克萊大學教授Aaron Wildavsky也只活了63歲（1930-1993），現在美國另一位研究國會的權威Nelson Polsby也過世了，活了72歲（1934-2007，按西方算法），不能算英年早逝，但還沒達到美國預期壽命。 Polsby與Wildavsky合著的Presidential Elections（英文出了11版）一書有中譯本（美國總統選擧戰略，王世憲譯），他與Fred Greenstein合編的七卷本Handbook of Political Science也有中譯本。不久前，原任教於威斯康新大學的Leon Epstein（1919-2006，他是台大葛永光老師的指導教授）和美國政治社會學大師Seymour Martin Lipset（1922-2006/12/31）（這兩位都擔任過美國政治學會會長）相繼辭世。 Polsby教授為康乃迪克州人，猶太裔(好幾家報紙的訃聞中，只有倫敦Times有提)，1956畢業於約翰霍普金斯大學政治學系，1957獲布朗大學社會學碩士，次年獲耶魯大學政治學碩士，1960執教於威斯康新大學陌地生分校（當時Epstein任系主任），1961年獲耶魯大學博士學位，執教於Wesleyan大學，1967到加州柏克萊大學，任教至辭世為止。他是達爾（Robert Dahl）研究團隊的一員（不過奇怪的是，他在接受Kreisler訪問時沒提到Dahl）。 Nelson W. Polsby, 72, Author and a Scholar of Politics, Dies Nelson W. Polsby, who marshaled intellectual rigor, lucid writing and a knack for drawing striking lessons from real-life observation in his enduring studies of Congress and the presidency, died on Tuesday at his home in The cause was complications of congestive heart failure, his daughter Emily Polsby said. Mr. Polsby, a political scientist, wrote or edited at least 15 books and scores of articles and edited The American Political Science Review, the most prestigious political science journal. He was especially known for his studies of Congress, the presidency, political parties, policy making and the media. In an interview with Harry Kreisler of the Institute for International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002, Mr. Polsby said it was all so much fun that he at first had trouble believing “people paid you American money to study this stuff.” As a youth, he gobbled up newspapers, newscasts and family talk about politics. Then , as a college student he eagerly pursued his fascination with how Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the anti-Communist crusader, managed “to scare the daylights” out of Using public opinion research and his instincts, Mr. Polsby attributed McCarthy’s success to support from the Republican Party, a novel notion to more senior social scientists. Mr. Polsby had already fallen in love with “There are often too many facts and not infrequently too many different versions of the facts,” he said in the Mr. Polsby taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wesleyan University before moving to Berkeley, where he was the Heller professor of political science and director of the Institute of Governmental Studies. Among the subjects he analyzed was how electoral rule changes in the major parties changed the political landscape. Edwin M. Yoder Jr., reviewing one of Mr. Polsby’s books, “Consequences of Party Reform” (1983), in The Washington Post Book World, called him the “ His influential works on Congress began with an article in The American Political Science Review in 1968. Titled “Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1948,” it told how the House had become more complex. In 2004, in “The Importance of Constituents,” he attributed the shift of power in the House to demographic changes. One reason for these, he said, was the availability of residential air-conditioning, which drew Republicans to the South, where they seized the conservative banner from traditional Democrats. His 1984 book, “Political Innovation in Nelson Woolf Polsby was born on His doctoral thesis at Yale concerned power relationships, but differed from the case studies of cities that were popular at the time. Norman J. Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Mr. Polsby put issues in a much broader context…. Mr. Polsby did not turn neoconservative, like many intellectual Democrats of his generation, but remained ruthlessly bipartisan in his prickliness. “He could rip the bark off Bill Clinton just as easily as he could George Bush,” Mr. Ornstein said. In 1964 he and his dynamic UCB colleague, Aaron Wildavsky, published Presidential Elections. Revised and published quadrennially — its 11th edition was in 2004 — it remains the standard text on the topic. After Wildavsky died in 1993, Polsby was the sole author and claimed that: “The only difference since Aaron’s death is that I win the arguments.” His prose was highly readable and marked by wide reading and incisive analysis. He was ambitious and worked very hard to maintain his reputation and keep up with UCB colleagues; he confessed that his insomnia was caused by noticing that the lights in the rooms of colleagues in the early hours of the morning — they were still at work! He quipped: “While Polsby sleeps, Wildavsky publishes.” He also wrote witty pieces on politics under an assumed name, Arthur Clun (borrowed from Angus Wilson’s Anglo-Saxon Attitudes). They prompted a publisher to offer a book contract to the mystery author. A keen observer of the British political scene, he collaborated with Geoffrey Smith, a political commentator on The Times, to publish British Government and its Discontents in 1981. At 37 he received the accolade of the editorship of the APSR.For six years he successfully managed, in a relaxed style, a large staff and coped with pressures from authors and reviewers. Polsby was a popular choice to become director of the IGS in 1988. He seemed to know everybody and to have read almost everything. He invited visiting scholars and politicians to talk about their work and their experiences — his good friend, Chris Patten was a regular visitor. He did much to create a friendly atmosphere, and a high point was the afternoon tea at which he presided. But he was less successful as a fundraiser because he could be overbearingly opinionated when faced with the deeply held views of potential donors. Having basked in the acclamation for his work he was desolate when his term expired in 1999, a consequence of the university’s ten-year rule for tenure. The institute had meant so much to him. Polsby wrote opinion pieces for major newspapers and was often cited by political journalists. He could be immensely quotable.
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