Leaning left

Ask most Government Department professors who they're voting for today, and they'll say President Bill Clinton and Sen. John F. Kerry(D-Mass).

Ask them if they're liberals, and they'll tell you no. Ask if their ideological views bias their classroom teaching, they'll say, "Absolutely not."

In an informal poll of Government Department faculty, 10 of 12 professors surveyed, or 83 percent, identified themselves as Democrats and said they prefer calling themselves "moderates" and "centrists".

The same number back Kerry in his senate contest against William F. Weld '66, the popular two-term liberal Republican governor who is in a dead heat with Kerry among all Massachusetts rankand-file voters.

Professors, however, say there is no overriding political sentiment in the department. They say there are no radical leftists and only a few extreme conservatives, with the bulk falling slightly to the left of the political spectrum.

"Like all of academia, the Gov. Department is probably unrepresentatively Democratic and liberal, but not excessively so--certainly not by Cambridge or Harvard standards," Government Department Chair Kenneth A. Shepsle wrote in an e-mail message.

Markham Professor of Government H. Douglas Price, a 25-year Harvard teaching veteran, says his colleagues were once polarized between liberal and conservative camps.

The department comprised the intellectual force behind the New Deal programs advanced by former president Franklin D. Roosevelt '04. And Bush-Quayle campaign officials complained in 1992 that Harvard was "a hotbed of liberalism."

But Price says the last true leftists, such as Michael A. Walzer, left about 15 years ago.

Neo-conservatives like James Q. Wilson, Samuel Beer, Daniel P. Moynihan and Henry Kissinger '50 have also moved on. Wilson took a teaching position at UCLA, Moynihan was elected to the United States Senate and Kissinger served as secretary of state for former president Richard M. Nixon.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvery C. Mansfield Jr. '53, an outspoken conservative on many social issues, says he's proud of his Republican heritage.

While in 1992 Mansfield complained that the Government Department was dominated by liberals and only tended to hire liberals, he now softens his criticism.

He says Harvard is one of the more conservative political science departments in the country, though it is still to the left of the American people.

"It's'a real problem that academia is turning left as the country is turning right," Mansfield says. "The discrepancy between the politics of the Harvard faculty and of the American people is going to be a bigger problem for Harvard than the American people."

The department's support for Clinton does not necessarily indicate its faculty are true liberals, Mansfield says, adding that passions in the department have been cooling since the late 1960s.

Most professors say the Government Department in large enough to allow a diversity of viewpoints. Since most classes deal with political theory instead of practical politics, they say, their views rarely enter into their teaching.

"With a very few exceptions, faculty attempt to separate their personal views from the methods and perspectives that they teach," say Professor of Government Jeffry Frieden.

Asked if her views affect her teaching, Assistant Professor of Government Celeste Wallander replies. "Absolutely not. The only bias would be a truncation of views at the ends, i.e. we are pretty much in the middle. Radicals do not stand much of a chance at most major universities, whether they be radical left or radical right!"