Dalton, Russell J.

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: University of California, Los Angeles, B.A., 1970; University of Michigan, M.A., 1972, Ph.D., 1978. Hobbies and other interests: Walking, traveling to Hawaii, and appearing in films.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of California, 5279 Social Science Plaza, Mail Code: 5100, Irvine, CA 92697; fax: 949-824-8762. E-mail—rdalton@uci.edu.

CAREER:

Florida State University, assistant professor of government, 1977-82, associate professor of political science, 1982-86, professor of political science, 1986-90, founding director of Survey Research Center, Policy Studies Program, 1979-80; University of California, Irvine, professor of political science, 1990—, chair of Department of Politics and Society, 1992-97. University of Michigan, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Summer Program, instructor, 1973-75; University of Cologne, German Electoral Data Project, co-project director, 1973-74; University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, Political Action Project, assistant study director, 1975-76; United States Information Agency, Office of Research, foreign affairs specialist, 1976-77; Center for the Study of Democracy, founding director, 1995-2004. Has served on committees for various scholarly studies and conferences.

Has worked as an extra in films, including Something Wild, Starship Troopers, Little Nicky, Spider-Man, and Running with Scissors.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright Research Fellowship, 1980-81; Developing Scholar Award, Council on Research and Creativity, Florida State University, 1983-84; Scholar-in-residence, Barbra Streisand Center for Environmental Studies (declined), 1995-96; German Marshall Fund Research Fellowship, 1998-99; POSCO Research Fellowship, East West Center, 2003-2004; 2005 Choice Academic Selection, for Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Values in Change: A Panel Study of German Youth, International Communications Agency (Washington, DC), 1980.

(With Kendall L. Baker and Kai Hildebrandt) Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1981.

(Editor, with Scott Flanagan and Paul Allen Beck) Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Realignment or Dealignment?, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1984.

Citizen Politics in Western Democracies: Public Opinion and Political Parties in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and France, Chatham House Publishers (Chatham, NJ), 1988, 4th edition published as Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Congressional Quarterly Press (Washington, DC), 2006.

Politics and Culture in West Germany, Center for Political Studies (Ann Arbor, MI), 1988.

Politics in West Germany, Scott, Foresman (Glenview, IL), 1989.

(Editor, with Manfred Kuechler) Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) The New Germany Votes: Unification and the Creation of a German Party System, Berg (Providence, RI), 1993.

Politics in Germany, 2nd edition, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993.

The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1994.

(Editor) Germans Divided: The 1994 Bundestag Elections and the Evolution of the German Party System, Berg (Washington, DC), 1996.

(Editor, with Gabriel A. Almond, G. Bingham Powell, Jr., and Kaare Strom) European Politics Today, Longman (New York, NY), 1999, 3rd edition, 2006.

(With Paula Garb, Nicholas Lovrich, John Pierce, and John Whiteley) Critical Masses: Citizens, Environmental Destruction, and Nuclear Weapons Production in Russia and the United States, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1999.

(Editor, with Gabriel A. Almond, G. Bingham Powell, Jr., and Kaare Strom) Comparative Politics Today, 7th edition, Longman (New York, NY), 2000, 8th edition update, 2005.

(Editor, with Martin P. Wattenberg) Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Gabriel A. Almond, G. Bingham Powell, Jr., and Kaare Strom) Comparative Politics: A Theoretical Framework, 3rd edition, Longman (New York, NY), 2001, 4th edition, 2004.

(Editor, with Bruce Cain and Susan Scarrow) Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor, with Doh Chull Shin) Citizens, Democracy, and Markets around the Pacific Rim: Congruence Theory and Political Culture, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(Editor, with Hans-Dieter Klingemann) Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Political Science: Looking to the Future, The Politics of Social Protest, Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, and Discontented Democrats: What's Troubling the Trilateral Democracies. Contributor of articles to journals, including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Journal of Sociology, and Journal of Democracy. Editor or coeditor of special issues of journals, including Annals of Political and Social Sciences, German Politics and Society, and Party Politics. Member of editorial boards for various journals.

Works have been translated into Russian and Arabic.

SIDELIGHTS:

Russell J. Dalton's teaching and writing have focused on how democracies function and the role that citizens play. His topics have included the reunification of Germany, transitions to democracy in Eastern European and Asian countries, the political influence of environmentalists and other activists, and citizen behavior in mature democracies. Several critics have praised Dalton's work for its research, its analysis, and sometimes its groundbreaking nature.

The New Germany Votes: Unification and the Creation of a German Party System, for which Dalton served as editor and contributor, looks at the election of 1990, the first after East and West Germany reunited. The major political parties that carried over from West Germany won substantial voter support, but citizens in the former East Germany gave a significant number of votes to minority parties. The book "lays the ground- work for a fuller understanding of the tensions underlying the tug-of-war between the old alignments and voter dissatisfactions," observed Frederick D. Weil in the Public Opinion Quarterly. He deemed it "an excellent overview of the parties, party system, and public opinion." Geoffrey K. Roberts, writing in West European Politics, called it a "useful guide" to "a sensitive and rapidly-changing political situation."

The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe discusses sixty-nine national organizations, dividing them into two categories: those concerned primarily with nature and wildlife conservancy and those more concerned with the ecology of human habitats. Dalton finds that ideology and structure tend to correlate, with preservation groups more centralized and conservative than ecological ones. His analysis is "careful and nuanced," noted Thomas R. Rochon in the American Political Science Review. Brian Doherty, critiquing for West European Politics, deemed the book "reliable and interesting" as well as "the best overview of environmental groups across western Europe."

Dalton explores citizens' trust in political and community institutions in Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. He believes trust is diminishing, and the chief cause is the proliferation of political interest groups. Eric M. Uslaner, reviewing the book for the Political Science Quarterly, thought there may be a more complicated explanation, but he nevertheless considered this work "a very important book" and "a tour de force in its breadth and in the scope of evidence he amasses." Uslaner concluded: "It will become a landmark in the study of political support."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, June, 1997, Thomas R. Rochon, review of The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe, p. 477.

Booklist, November 15, 1994, Brenda Grazis, review of The Green Rainbow, p. 559.

Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, spring, 2000, Carl Bruch, "Compromised Immunity," p. 126.

International Journal of Public Opinion Research, spring, 1997, William J. Gonzenbach and Michael Mitrook, review of Germans Divided: The 1994 Bundestag Elections and the Evolution of the German Party System, p. 92.

Political Science Quarterly, spring, 2005, Eric M. Uslaner, review of Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, p. 135.

Public Opinion Quarterly, spring, 1996, Frederick D. Weil, review of The New Germany Votes: Unification and the Creation of a German Party System, p. 167.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2005, review of Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies.

West European Politics, January, 1995, Geoffrey K. Roberts, review of The New Germany Votes, p. 220; January, 1996, Brian Doherty, review of The Green Rainbow, p. 184; January, 2002, Thomas Poguntke, review of Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, p. 225.

ONLINE

University of California, Irvine, School of Social Sciences Web site,http://www.socsci.uci.edu/ (September 28, 2006), biography, bibliography, and curriculum vitae.