Sunday, March 20, 2011

RIP, George Rabinowitz

. Sunday, March 20, 2011

The UNC political science department lost a valued faculty member, colleague, and friend this weekend. George Rabinowitz, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor, died suddenly of a heart attack on Friday in Norway, where he was spending a semester. (Prof. Rabinowitz was elected member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters in 2003, and frequently spent time teaching and researching in that country.)

I TA'd for Prof. Rabinowitz last semester, and can testify to his dedication to rigor in his teaching. He had a similar discipline in his research. He is probably best known for developing the directional model of issue voting, which complicated traditional proximity voting models, but contributed many other notable works as well. He served on the editorial board of AJPS and JoP. Here is his CV. Here is his seminal APSR paper on directional theory, with Stuart Macdonald. Here is a Google search on directional theory, which gets 163,000 hits.

He is survived by his wife Stuart Macdonald, also a UNC political science professor, and several children.

4 comments:

Greg Weeks said...

Wow, very sad. I was his TA in the mid 1990s for Intro to American Politics.

Anonymous said...

My condolences to the UNC family, and particularly to Stuart.

Adam Newmark

Katy Bulkley said...

I'm so very sorry to hear this. I worked as an RA for George many years ago, and remember him both for the quality of his work and the kindness of his approach to students. My best wishes to Stuart and his children - I can't begin to image how much he'll be missed.

Katy Bulkley

Unknown said...

So sorry to hear this. I was an RA for George and Stuart in 1990, and they were wonderful role models.

RIP, George Rabinowitz
 

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