Paul D. Schumaker

Professor

Department of Political Science

Contact Information

Office phone number(s): 785-864-9038
Office: 522 Blake
Office Hours: 10:00-12:00 MW
Email Address: schu@ku.edu

Mailing Address:	Department of Political Science 1541 Lilac Lane, 504 Blake
	Lawrence, KS 66044-3177

Vita:

http://www2.ku.edu/~kups/people/vitae/Schumaker_vitaF08.pdf

 

Background

Educational Background
Graduated from:

University of Wisconsin - Madison, Ph.D., 1973
Beloit College, 1968

First Appointed at KU: 1972

Areas of Interest

Brief list of research and teaching interests:

Political theory, public policy, community politics.

Research Statement:

My interest in pluralist theory and public philosophy has evolved over these years.  I first sought to understand whether racial minorities and other relatively powerless groups could gain access and favorable policy responses when they engaged in protest activities targeted at urban officials; that work, published in such places as the Journal of Politics (May 1975) and the Sociological Quarterly (Spring 1978 and Spring 1981) suggested the effectiveness of working within, rather than against, pluralist institutions.  I then analyzed systemic biases within pluralist politics favoring relatively advantaged citizens and organized groups over relatively disadvantaged citizens and groups (those composed of minorities and the poor); that work was published in such journals as the American Journal of Political Science (August 1977), and the Western Political Quarterly (March 1983).   I also discovered significant gender biases that reduced the effectiveness of the participation of women in local politics (American Journal of Political Science, Nov. 1988).  Such work culminated in a reformulation of pluralist theory that emphasized that the ability of pluralism to achieve three broad goals (principle/policy congruence, responsible representation, and complex equality) was dependent on various specified conditions; this empirical study of democratic performance was published as Critical Pluralism (by the University Press of Kansas in 1991).  I also authored related conceptual and empirical work on the nature of power, resulting in articles in such places as Urban Affairs Quarterly (March 1993) and Policy Studies Journal (Spring, 1998). 

My work has been increasingly concerned with normative political theory.  Great Ideas/ Grand Schemes (McGraw-Hill, 1996) provided a conceptual framework permitting the comparative analysis of the diverse ideological perspectives that have competed for power during the past two centuries.  In the aftermath of the 2000 Gore-Bush election, I organized a panel of 36 political scientists to engage in a dialogue about the effectiveness of the current method used to elect the American President; this was published as Choosing A President: The Electoral College and Beyond (Chatham House, 2002 – now available from CQ Press). 

During the past five years, I have been primarily concerned with the evolution of pluralist political theory and with the construction of public philosophies.  This work culminated in a textbook, From Ideologies to Public Philosophies, published in 2008 by Blackwell.  During summer of 2008, I completed The Political Theory Reader (which is in press with Wiley-Blackwell) to complement that text.

Currently I am working on two book-length projects.  First is an attempt to provide a comprehensive “progressive” pluralist public philosophy that synthesizes the ideals and beliefs of several left-of-center “friends of pluralism” and defends this perspective as superior to the right-of-center perspective (global neoliberalism) that currently is the governing ideology in much of the world.  As part of an extended research project to show that “ethics matter” in politics, I have completed research involving interviews with over 200 urban elected officials in 24 cities and is drafting a manuscript on the “moral pluralism” of officials and how they apply diverse moral and justice principles to their policy decisions.