Gerhard Loewenberg, 1928‐2019 In Memoriam

• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12278

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 45, 1, February 2020

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12278

Gerhard Loewenberg, 1928-2019 In

Memoriam

Gerhard (Jerry) Loewenberg, co-founder of Legislative

Studies Quarterly, died December 28, 2019.He was 91 years old.

Along with Malcolm (Mac) Jewell, Jerry started the Legislative

Studies Quarterly at the University of Iowa’s Comparative Legislative

Research Center in 1974. The journal now enjoys hundreds of indi-

vidual subscribers, thousands of institutional subscribers, and is an

internationally recognized academic journal, having helped cultivate

and shape legislative studies by subjecting some of the best research

in the field to the peer review process before distributing it around

the globe. The Jewell-Loewenberg Prize for the best paper published

in the journal each year is awarded by the Legislative Studies Section

of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

For more than 30 years Jerry served as a co-editor of the

journal and director of the center. From the start, he made the

editorial responsibility for the journal a collective enterprise, as it

remains today. Along the way, he amassed his own prolific publish-

ing record, championed comparative legislative research, served as

chair of Iowa’s Department of Political Science (more than once),

and filled the role of dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Iowa

for nearly a decade. Jerry received APSA’s Frank J. Goodnow

Award for outstanding service to the discipline. He was an elected

member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His accomplishments were impressive, but they do not come

close to telling the story of Jerry’s personal and professional im-

pact. He was a deeply thoughtful person who could offer insight-

ful academic critiques and sound professional advice with equally

compelling rationale. With a manner that was gentle, firm, and

inclusive, he guided many scholars in the field. Many of us in the

field of legislative studies benefited greatly from knowing him. He

loved political science and his love was infectious.

Jerry is survived by his wife of 69 years, Ina, his children,

Deborah (Richard Ball) and Michael, brother-in-law Barry Head,

grandchildren Sarah (Joshua Hakala), Joshua and Jacob Ball, and

Zoë Loewenberg, and three great-grandchildren.

A roundtable in Jerry Loewenberg’s honor is being planned

for the 2020 meeting of the American Political Science Association.

© 2020 Washington University in St. Louis