Theodore J. Lowi, a political scientist "who challenged conventional scholarship on presidential power and identified the emergence of what he called 'interest-group liberalism,' " died February 17, the New York Times reported. He was 85. Lowi "popularized his theories with an evangelical zeal and a Southern drawl in lectures, television appearances and groundbreaking books."
Among those titles were The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled; The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States; The Politics of Disorder; American Government: Power and Purpose; and Hyperpolitics: An Interactive Dictionary of Political Science (with Mauro Calise). He also edited The Pursuit of Justice, Robert F. Kennedy's book about his tenure as attorney general.
Lowi was named the nation's most influential political scientist in a poll of the American Political Science Association's members in 1978, the Times noted. Ilter Turan, APSA president, said, "Lowi's scientific personality was a unique mix of extraordinary empirical knowledge and bold theoretical vision."