"We shared a bond as independent-minded progressives"

I was first exposed to Ted Lowi as an undergraduate at Oberlin in the 1970s, where The End of Liberalism was the first required reading for my first course in Government in my first semester of college. I received a C+. My grades improved, however, and I finally got to know Ted personally while in grad school in Cornell’s Department of Government in the 1980s. Though I was one of his TAs for his mega-class (co-taught with Ben Ginsberg) in Bailey Hall with 600+ students, I was not an Americanist, so I never had Ted as a professor or an advisor.

However, I would drop by his office periodically just to chat politics, and -- despite the many demands on his time -- he would always welcome me and would not just share his thinking, but welcome my thinking as well. I believe we shared something of a bond as independent-minded progressives who had grown up in the segregated South. In subsequent years, as I got to know such political figures as George McGovern and John B. Anderson personally, the first thing they would say when they learned I received my doctorate at Cornell would be how much they liked and respected Ted Lowi.

Perhaps my fondest memory of Ted was when I called him up the morning after the 2004 election feeling incredibly depressed about the re-election of George W. Bush and not sure how to face my students in my upcoming class. In his unique eloquent style, he assured me that -- despite the deep concerns we both shared about both Bush and the state of political affairs as a whole -- democracy would prevail and the best of the American spirit would be able to re-assert itself to make this a better country in the long run. It was his unique combination of skepticism and optimism that made Ted so special to me, something we all need in this challenging period in American politics.

Stephen Zunes

Professor of Politics

University of San Francisco