Wildavsky, Aaron Bernard

(b. 31 May 1930 in New York City; d. 4 September 1993 in Oakland, California), political scientist and noted authority on government budgeting and public administration and policy.

Wildavsky was the third child and the only son to live to adulthood of Eva and Sender Wildavsky, who immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine in 1928. His parents had experienced life under tsarist and Bolshevik governments and were committed to the policies exemplified in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. His father, a bookbinder by trade, was injured shortly after arriving in the United States, and the money he received under the workman’s compensation laws allowed him to buy a small apartment building in Brooklyn. Wildavsky recalled that his first contact with partisan politics came from negotiating housing matters on behalf of his parents with City Hall through the local Democratic club. At fourteen he distributed campaign leaflets for President Roosevelt. Wildavsky indicated, however, that it was his time at Brooklyn College that really led to his intense personal interest and involvement in politics.

Wildavsky attended public schools in Brooklyn, graduating from P.S. 89 and Erasmus Hall High School (1948), where he was, by his own account, an indifferent student. He blossomed as a scholar, however, when he entered Brooklyn College in the fall of 1948. His undergraduate work was interrupted by military service in the U.S. Army (1950-1952), after which he returned to college and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA. degree in 1954. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Sydney in Australia (1954-1955). Upon returning to the United States, he earned an M.A. degree in 1957 and a Ph.D. in 1959, both from Yale University. In 1955 he married Carol Shirk; they had four children. They divorced in 1970 and he later married Mary Cadman.

In 1958 Wildavsky began his academic career at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1962 he moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where he became chairman of the Department of Political Science from 1966 to 1969. He was the first dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at Berkeley from 1969 to 1977. At the time of his death, he was Class of 1940 Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Berkeley. Wildavsky became the president of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City (1977-1978) but returned to Berkeley within two years.

Wildavsky was a remarkably prolific author in the fields of political science, public policy, and public administration. He wrote or coauthored thirty-nine books and approximately 200 articles, essays, and reviews on a wide range of issues. In 1964 Wildavsky coauthored Presidential Elections: Strategies of American Electoral Politics with his longtime friend Nelson W. Polsby, who had been a fellow graduate student at Yale and subsequently a colleague at Berkeley. The book examined why some candidates were successful and others were not and how voter choices were constrained by the rules regulating nominations and elections. This book had a long-term impact on teaching about presidential elections and was revised in seven subsequent editions during presidential election years.

Wildavsky made his mark in public administration with the publication of The Politics of the Budgetary Process (1964) and in The New Politics of the Budgetary Process (1988 and 1992). Wildavsky analyzed the use of power, strategy, and compromise in incremental budgetary changes that tend to distribute dissatisfaction relatively equally to all parties over time. Politics of the Budgetary Process was named by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) as the third most influential work in public administration in the previous fifty years.

Wildavsky thought of political analysis as more of an “art” or “craft” than a “science,” and he was unmoved by the trend toward more empirical approaches in political science. He saw much of his writing as self-expression. As he wrote, “Every man needs a craft through which he can express himself to the extent of his abilities, and I have found mine.” Polsby wrote about him, “He is one of those who writes in order to learn what he thinks, and who embraces the discipline of putting his ideas promptly into words and sentences.”

Wildavsky’s political views and party affiliation changed over his career from that of a New Deal Democrat to an increasingly conservative Republican by the early 1980s. He believed that most men had “little knowledge and limited moral sensibility,” and therefore he had a “deepseated pessimism about man’s ability to control the evil in him.” He came to be increasingly uncomfortable with what he considered the rise of radical egalitarianism within the Democratic party. Toward the end of his career, Wildavsky believed that the government had become too responsive to this radical minority’s demand for more regulation in the areas of health, safety, and the environment. He was, not surprisingly, distrustful of the value of normative theory– which indicates a preference based on moral or social values rather than on empirical evidence–in public administration. These views elicited criticism from many academic colleagues in a harsh manner he had not previously experienced.

Wildavsky’s prominence within political science was recognized by the many honors and awards that he received. Brooklyn College, his alma mater, bestowed an honorary degree on him (1977) as did Yale University (1993). Wildavsky received more awards than any other political scientist of his generation. In 1972 he received the ASPA’s William E. Mosher Award, and in 1982 the organization awarded him the Dwight Waldo Award for his contributions to the literature of public administration. He received the Charles E. Merriam Award from the American Political Science Association (1975) in recognition of his contributions applying theory to the practice of politics, the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for Research (1981), and the Harold Lasswell award for contributions to the study of public policy (1984). He was president of the American Political Science Association from 1985 to 1986.

Wildavsky died of lung cancer at the age of sixty-three. He is buried in Oakland, California.

Wildavsky possessed a character and scholarly presence that served to enlighten and inspire individuals whether or not they agreed with him. His intellectual contributions were not limited to his prodigious publications but include his work as an excellent teacher with caring concern for his students.

Wildavsky’s broad-ranging views, including an introspective look at his own scholarly approach, is found in his Revolt Against the Masses and Other Essays on Politics and Public Policy (1971). The most thorough and objective evaluation of Wildavsky’s contributions to political science is found in L. R. Jones, “Aaron Wildavsky: A Man and Scholar for all Seasons,” in Public Administration Review 55, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1995). A revealing portrait of Wildavsky is found in Nelson Polsby, “The Contributions of President Aaron Wildavsky” in PS: Political Science and Politics 18, no.4 (fall 1985). Eulogies and a complete bibliography of his publications are found in Institute of Government Studies, Aaron Wildavsky: A Memorial 1930-1993 (1994). An obituary is in the New York Times (6 Sept. 1993).

Charles L. Cochran