Dawson, Michael C. 1951-

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DAWSON, Michael C. 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born 1951. Education: University of California—Berkeley, B.A., 1982; Harvard University, M.A., 1985, Ph.D., 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Home—1200 Washington St., #512, Boston, MA 02118. Office—Harvard University, Department of Government, M-35 Littauer Center (North Yard), 1875 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, assistant professor, 1986-1992, associate professor of political science and African-American studies, 1992-94; University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, associate professor, 1992-97, professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, 1997-2002, chair of department, 1998-2001, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science, 2001-02; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, professor of government and Afro-American studies, 2002—. Mellon undergraduate fellowship program, director, 1997-98; member of various academic boards and committees; consultant to the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Harvard University, University of Michigan, Carnegie Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Stanford University, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Joyce Foundation; Book of the Year award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists, 1995, for Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics; Illinois Humanities Council award for innovative programming, 2001, for the "Trading Fours Jazz Conference"; est Book award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists, 2002, for Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies; Best Book award on ideology, theory, and intellectual history and Ralph Bunche Award, American Political Science Association, 2002, both for Black Visions.

WRITINGS:

Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1994.

Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.

Contributor to books, including The New Majority, edited by Theda Skocpol and Stan Greenberg, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1997; The Cultural Territories of Race: White and Black Boundaries, edited by Michelle Lamont, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1999; and Racialized Politics: Values, Ideology, and Prejudice in American Public Opinion, edited by David O. Sears, Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2000. Contributor of essays and reviews to journals and periodicals, including American Political Science Review, Public Culture, Political Science and Politics, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Polling Report, State of Black Michigan, and the National Review of Political Science.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

(Editor, with Melissa Harris-Lacewell) Fractured Rainbow: Race and Civil Society in the United States; (wth Lawrence Bobo) A Train-wreck in Black White: Race and the 2000 Presidential Elections; various manuscripts.

SIDELIGHTS:

When Michael C. Dawson accepted a dual position at Harvard University in 2002, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of the Afro-American studies program, told the Associated Press that Dawson "is the leading scholar of black politics in the world, and he is one of the most important scholars in the entire field of political science."

Although Dawson is the author of many papers and studies, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics is his first book, an examination of the importance of race and class in shaping African-American political opinion.

Contemporary Sociology's Walter R. Allen wrote that "a central tenet in Dawson's conceptualization of the 'black utility heuristic' (a framework that postulates that blacks will use status of the group—both relative and absolute—as a proxy for individual utility) is the notion that black political choice hinges on black views of what is good for the racial group being synonymous with what is good for self. He asserts that the key to African-American social identity can be found 'behind the mule,' that is, in the group's historical legacy of racial and economic oppression." Dawson contends that black politics has been shaped in much the same way.

In the first half of the book, Dawson presents historical and theoretical arguments, and in the second half, he draws on empirical data, particularly from the 1984-85 National Black Election Panel Study (NBEPS) conducted by the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan. What he finds is that blacks who have become part of the middle and upper class tend to make their political decisions based on race rather than class, that the majority remain leftist and Democrat, and that the least advantaged of the group tend to favor black nationalism and economic redistribution in a climate of economic deterioration.

Abigail Thernstrom noted in Public Interest: "It's this last point that got quite extraordinary press attention before the book even appeared.… In fact, the survey data which made such news didn't square with an important point buried in his book: ninety-six percent of blacks surveyed in the mid-1980s disagreed with the statement 'blacks should whenever possible have nothing to do with whites.' It's hard to believe that number has dropped dramatically. It suggests that, while blacks may flirt with going their own political way and believe they will sink or swim together, they know they are a small group in a big country of which they are an inseparable part."

Thernstrom felt that "if black public opinion is moving left, as Dawson believes, it may have little to do with good or bad economic times, and much to do with the pull of African-American politicians who run in settings in which racial and economic militancy pays off politically. Or in which, in any case, candidates are free to engage in the rhetoric of racial and economic justice." Thernstrom noted the increasing number of black moderates and conservatives who have won elections in districts with white majorities and the possibility that such political figures may, in the future, pull black voters to the right.

Allen concluded his review by saying that the book "is carefully crafted, well-written, empirically grounded, systematically argued, and thoroughly documented."

Dawson "was principal investigator of the 1993-94 National Black Politics Study (NBPS), which surveyed 1,200 randomly chosen African Americans to explore—for the first time—the relationship between political ideologies and political beliefs of African Americans," noted Beth Potier in reviewing Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies for the Harvard Gazette Online. Potier observed that "Dawson's current work builds on his previous studies while taking him into new directions. He's expanding his political perspective to embrace social and economic institutions' roles in race and civil society."

Dawson says that since the nineteenth century, the functions of black civil society—economic, political, social, and religious—have been combined because of the importance of the church. "Looking nationally and drilling down to the local level in cities, Dawson is exploring the changing roles of historically important black institutions and the shifting boundaries between the public and the private in black communities," explained Potier.

Times Literary Supplement reviewer Adam Fairclough felt that "the quality of the information yielded by this survey is, however, open to question." Fairclough noted that there was a response rate of only sixty-five percent and that the social and economic profiles of these respondents is very different from the black population reflected in the 1990 U.S. Census. A disproportionate number are women, aged, and/or well-educated. Fairclough also commented that the thirty-four percent who said they were "true believers" in "black Marxism" were judged to be so by their agreement with four statements that comprised a loose definition of Marxism.

Dawson emphasizes that since blacks were not incorporated into the politics of the United States until the last half of the twentieth century, they cannot be expected to embrace liberalism. Fairclough wrote that "to view the African-American experience as the progressive fulfilment of American ideals is good mythology but bad history." Fairclough found Dawson's analysis to be more interesting "when he delineates the varieties of black political ideology and explores their historical context."

The relationship between African Americans and the Communist Party is explored in the book, as are the roles of liberal leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and contemporary black conservative leaders. Fair-clough concluded by calling Dawson's conclusions "powerful."

Molefi Kete Asante said on his Web site that Black Visions is "an outstanding study of black political ideologies.… Dawson's most ambitious work to date."

Dawson's next projects include a book that studies race and civil society and the dynamics of changes in the American economy and labor markets and racial conflict and cooperation, and another that explores the 2000 presidential election and how voters may have been divided along racial lines. Another project will look at the information technology revolution in a multicultural society.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Black Scholar, winter, 1995, Hanes Walton, Jr., review of Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics, p. 48.

Contemporary Sociology, July, 1995, Walter R. Allen, review of Behind the Mule, pp. 345-347; March, 2003, Robert E. Washington, review of Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies, pp. 219-221.

Journal of Black Studies, January, 2003, Molefi Kete Asante, review of Black Visions, pp. 389-395.

Public Interest, summer, 1995, Abigail Thernstrom, review of Behind the Mule, p. 106.

Public Opinion Quarterly, winter, 1995, Bart Landry, review of Behind the Mule, p. 630.

Times Literary Supplement, October 25, 2002, Adam Fairclough, review of Black Visions, pp. 8-9.