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James A. Stimson, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Citation
Stimson led a major intellectual conceptualization of the field with hiswork on time-series and particularly on the analysis of pooled time-series and cross-sectional data and designs. His substantive work on issue evolution inspired his important AJPS paper on "Regression in Space and Time." This paper initiated a very large body of innovative methodological and applied work, much of which is still being explored. The reach of this work expands beyond Stimson's own field of American politics and is now a fixture in comparative politics and international relations, where the paper has been cited in scholarship ranging from work explaining the number of parties in Argentina to work exploring the determinants of international trade. His work with aggregate time-series data stimulated many important methodological and substantive discussions and papers and was one of the first uses of Box-Jenkins time series methods in Political Science. Stimson originated and provided definition and direction for the use and understanding of these methods in the field.
His work with Edward Carmines on issue evolution and the long-term connection between parties, the mass public, and representation has had a tremendous impact. His solo work on the nature of public opinion and public policy mood reshaped how scholars think about public opinion. His collaboration with Michael MacKuen and Robert Erikson on The Macro Polity challenged the conventional wisdom on partisanship and extant understandings about the link between economics and politics. His work on public mood led him to create the time series measurement algorithm CALC which has been used by numerous other scholars for their own applications. For The Macro Polity, Stimson and his collaborators were early pioneers in work with the DYMIMIC estimator to model the dynamic link between time series with multiple indicators. On the measurement side, his public mood scale is the most widely used measure of public liberalism across time at the macro-level.
Stimson's work has been widely recognized and has received numerous prestigious awards. His book, Issue Evolution, with Carmines received the Kammerer Award in 1990 as the APSA's best book in American politics; Tides of Consent received the 2006 Goldsmith Prize from the Shorenstein Center at the John F. Kennedy School for the best book on politics, the press and public affairs; in 1996 he shared the Heinz Eulau prize for the best paper published in the APSR the previous year; and in 2005 he shared the McGraw-Hill Award for the best paper published on law and courts. In 2000 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His scholarly work is widely praised, and the breadth of topics is impressive.
Stimson has served the Society in almost every way possible. Jim attended the first Summer Political Methodology Workshop in Ann Arbor in July, 1984. This workshop laid the foundation for the Society for Political Methodology and the now twenty-six year long series of summer conferences that have grown from fifteen to three hundred participants. He served as the organization's president from 1995-1997.
Stimson is also responsible for one of the Society's most important institutions. He was the original editor of our very successful journal, Political Analysis. His work to establish Political Analysis as a major journal at a time when the organization barely existed and then his editorial leadership for the first three issues created the journal we now have and value. His vision for the journal and his incredible energy, patience, and persistence are evident in the journal's reputation and impact.
Finally, Stimson has been a tremendously successful mentor and collaborator in the field. We are so grateful to Stimson for all of this work.