Samuel J. Eldersveld

Samuel J. Eldersveld (March 29, 1917 – March 4, 2010) was an American academic, political scientist, and Democratic politician. He served as Mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1957 to 1959.

Career

Eldersveld memorial plaque, St. Andrews Episcopal Church

Eldersveld had a long and distinguished career as a political scientist and professor. He spent most of his career as professor of political science at the University of Michigan, and was professor emeritus at that institution at the time of his death. The American Political Science Association recognized Eldersveld's achievements in 1986 by creating the annual Samuel J. Eldersveld Award, meant "to honor a scholar whose lifetime professional work has made an outstanding contribution to the field," and by naming Eldersveld the first year's winner.

Eldersveld was elected mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan as a Democrat in 1957. He ran against the incumbent Republican mayor William E. Brown, Jr. and independent candidate Dominick A. DeVarti, who had lost the 1957 Republican primary to Brown. Mayor William E. Brown, Jr., had served an unprecedented twelve consecutive years in office, and Eldersveld successfully quashed Brown's bid for a seventh term in the mayor's post. Eldersveld served one two-year term as mayor, but decided not to run for reelection in 1959. He died of congestive heart failure in Ann Arbor in March 2010.^[1] He was cremated and his ashes interred in the St. Andrews Episcopal Church Memorial Cloister Garden in Ann Arbor.^[2]

Selected book publications

• Eldersveld, Samuel J., and James K. Pollock. Michigan Politics in Transition: An Areal Study of Voting Trends in the Last Decade. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1942.
• _____, and Amry Vandenbosch. Government of the Netherlands. Lexington: Bureau of Govt. Research, Univ. of Kentucky, 1947.
• _____ and Albert A. Applegate. Michigan's Recounts for Governor, 1950 and 1952: A Systematic Analysis of Election Error. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1954.
• _____. Political Affiliation in Metropolitan Detroit. Ann Arbor: Institute of Public Administration, University of Michigan, 1957.
• _____. Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
• _____, V. Jagannadham, and A. P. Barnabas. The Citizen and the Administrator in a Developing Democracy. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1968.
• _____ and Bashiruddin Ahmed. Citizens and Politics: Mass Political Behavior in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
• _____, Jan Kooiman, and Theo van der Tak. Bestuur en Beleid: Politiek en Bestuur in de Ogen van Kamerleden en Hoge Ambtenaren. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1980.
• _____, Jan Kooiman, and Theo van der Tak. Elite Images of Dutch Politics: Accommodation and Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
• _____. Political Elites in Modern Societies: Empirical Research and Democratic Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989.
• _____, Lars Strömberg, and Wim Derksen. Local Elites in Western Democracies: A Comparative Analysis of Urban Political Leaders in the U.S., Sweden, and the Netherlands. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.
• _____. Party Conflict and Community Development: Postwar Politics in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
• _____. Political Parties in American Society. New York: Basic Books, 1982. Second edition, with Hanes Walton, Jr., Boston: St. Martin's, 2000.
• _____ and Mingming Shen. Support for Economic and Political Change in the China Countryside: An Empirical Study of Cadres and Villagers in Four Counties, 1990 and 1996. Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2001.
• _____ Poor America: A Comparative-Historical Study of Poverty in the U.S. and Western Europe. Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2007.

References

External links

• Mayors of Ann Arbor page at PoliticalGraveyard.com
• Samuel J. Eldersveld on LocalWiki