Albert Angus Campbell Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Albert Angus Campbell (1910–1980) is considered by many as the father of modern political behavior and survey research in the social sciences. His contributions extend from groundbreaking research in the early use of surveys, the establishment of the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center (SRC) after World War II (1939–1945), and the entrenchment of the National Election Studies (NES) as a national resource by the National Science Foundation. Campbell’s impact in political science literature has been far-reaching, because of the methods and concepts developed and the standards set by his work, from the path breaking The American Voter to his final work, The Sense of Well-Being in America.

Born in Indiana, Campbell was one of six children, the son of a school principal who had been educated in Latin and Greek at the University of Michigan. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Campbell later attended the University of Oregon, receiving a BA and an MA in psychology. At Stanford University, he obtained his doctorate in experimental psychology. His transition to social psychology came after a series of career developments, including a position teaching social psychology at Northwestern University, a research fellowship from the Social Science Research Council to study social anthropology at Cambridge, and research in the Virgin Islands on the culture and personality of the black population of St.Thomas.

During World War II, Campbell left Northwestern to join the Division of Program Surveys in the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., conducting national sample surveys to determine American reactions to the war. It was here that Campbell developed his skills and interests in the survey techniques that he would later apply to his academic research program. After the war, he moved, with a number of his colleagues from the division, to the University of Michigan, becoming the first director of the SRC, where the techniques developed in the division were continued in the academic setting. It was in this context that a program for studies in political behavior was developed, in which the SRC conducted election studies during the national elections every two years. This research program led to the publication of The American Voter (1960), a collaborative project that set the foundation for the field of political behavior.

The American Voter put forth concepts that have become synonymous with the Michigan school approach to political behavior, an approach that centers upon the individual and the psychology of voting. As a result of Campbell and his research team’s efforts, the NES has become entrenched in the social sciences and a model for election studies around the world, facilitating the development of a large comparative literature in the study of voting behavior and public opinion.

Campbell was also involved in a rich and diverse research program, in which he gave insight on partisanship, attitudes toward social change, political institutions, racial attitudes, and issues in methodology and measurement, culminating in his final publication, The Sense of Well-Being in America: Recent Patterns and Trends (1980). He has had a seminal influence on the establishment of political behavior as a discipline in political science, as a result of his commitment to the development and improvement of survey research and the scientific approach to the study of politics, and his willingness to tackle the tough questions in society.

Bibliography:

Campbell, Angus. The Sense of Well-Being in America: Recent Patterns and Trends. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse,Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. The American Voter. Chicago:Wiley, 1960.
Converse, Philip E. “On the Passing of Angus Campbell.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 40, no. 4 (1981): 341–342.
Coombs, Clyde H. “Angus Campbell, 1910–1980.” In Biographical Memoirs, vol. 56, 43–52.Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1987.
Katz, Daniel. “In Memoriam: Angus Campbell, 1910–1980.” Public Opinion Quarterly 45, no. 1 (1981): 124–125.