Gabriel Almond | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Gabriel Abraham Almond (1911-01-12)January 12, 1911 Rock Island,Illinois, US |
| Died | December 25, 2002(2002-12-25) (aged 91) |
| Awards | Karl Deutsch Award (1997) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Thesis | Plutocracy and Politics in New York City |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political science |
| Sub-discipline | Comparative politics |
| Institutions | |
| Notable works | The Civic Culture (1963) |
Gabriel Abraham Almond (January 12, 1911 – December 25, 2002) was an Americanpolitical scientist best known for his pioneering work oncomparative politics, political development, andpolitical culture.
Almond was born on January 12, 1911, inRock Island,Illinois, the son ofRussian-Jewish andUkrainian-Jewishimmigrants, raised "in a strictorthodox Jewish home."[1] He attended theUniversity of Chicago, both as anundergraduate and as agraduate student, and worked withHarold Lasswell. Almond completed hisDoctor of Philosophy degree in 1938, but his doctoraldissertation,Plutocracy and Politics in New York City, was not published until 1998, because it included unflattering references toJohn D. Rockefeller, a benefactor of the University of Chicago.
Almond taught atBrooklyn College (now theCity University of New York) from 1939 to 1942. With US entry intoWorld War II, Almond joined theOffice of War Information, analyzing enemypropaganda, and becoming head of its Enemy Information Section. After the war, Almond worked for theUS Strategic Bombing Survey in post-warGermany.
Almond returned to academic life in 1947 and taught atYale University where he was part of theirInstitute of International Studies until 1951, when he was part of a group that left forPrinceton University and founded itsCenter of International Studies.[2] He subsequently returned to Yale in 1959, then went toStanford University in 1963, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961[3] and theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1966.[4] He waschair of the political science department at Stanford from 1964 to 1969 and spent time as a visiting professor at theUniversity of Tokyo, the University ofBelo Horizonte, and theTaras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Although Almond retired in 1976 and became anemeritus professor at Stanford, he continued to write and teach until his death.
Almond chaired theSocial Science Research Council's Committee on Comparative Politics for many years and was president of theAmerican Political Science Association (APSA) for 1965–1966. In 1981, he received APSA'sJames Madison Award, which is given to apolitical scientist who has made a "distinguished scholarly contribution" during his or her career. He was also the first recipient of theKarl Deutsch Award[5] of theInternational Political Science Association in 1997. Almond died on December 25, 2002, inPacific Grove,California, aged 91.
Almond broadened the political science field in the 1950s by integrating approaches from othersocial science disciplines, such associology,psychology, andanthropology, into his work. He transformed an interest inforeign policy into systematic studies ofcomparative politicaldevelopment andculture. Almond's research eventually covered many topics, including the politics ofdeveloping countries,communism, andreligious fundamentalism.[citation needed]
Almond was a prolific author, publishing 18 books and numerous journal articles, and co-writing many others. His most famous work wasThe Civic Culture (1963), co-authored withSidney Verba. It popularized the idea of apolitical culture – a concept that includes national character and how people choose to govern themselves – as a fundamental aspect of society. Almond and Verba distinguished different political cultures according to their level and type ofpolitical participation and the nature of people's attitudes towardpolitics.The Civic Culture was one of the first large-scale cross-national survey studies undertaken in political science and greatly stimulatedcomparative studies ofdemocracy.[6][7][additional citation(s) needed]
Almond also contributed totheoretical work on political development. InComparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (1966), Almond and G. Bingham Powell proposed a variety ofcultural andfunctional ways to measure the development of societies. For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, Almond's approaches came to definecomparative politics.[citation needed]
In a 1991 paper titled, "Capitalism and Democracy", in two paragraphs Almond stated what the basic agendas for the study of governance ought to be in US universities: that capitalism and democracy co-exist as the prevailing systems of governance the world over and they invariably interact with each other and transform each other through time."[8]
The similarities between Almond's view andWalter Lippmann's produced what became known as theAlmond–Lippmann consensus, which is based on three assumptions:[9]
The Almond–Lippmann consensus was highly influential in the 1950s and 1960s but weakened following theVietnam War. Current research has refuted much of the Almond–Lippmann consensus, especially the second point that public opinion is incoherent and lacks organization. In fact, research done by theUniversity of Pittsburgh and theUniversity of Kentucky has suggested that Americans reach opinion on foreign policy by using abstract, but often consistent, ideologies. These ideologies include their attitudes towardscommunism,militarism,isolationism, and so forth.[15]
Lippmann recanted his previous view, arguing that the public had taken a more sober approach to the war than the heads of government.[10]
| Professional and academic associations | ||
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| Preceded by | President of the American Political Science Association 1965–1966 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | APSA James Madison Award 1981 | Succeeded by |
| New award | Karl Deutsch Award 1997 | Succeeded by |
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