Wine drinking and exercise walking. Well read, knowledgeably conversant, and cuss-word capable. Serious about work, committed to science, intolerant of foolishness, generous to many, and humorous about life.
Harold Dowler Clarke’s 78.5 years were not uneventful. He was born, as the only child, to Harold Gordon Clarke and Ida Jane (Dowler) Clarke in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, on July 27, 1943. Harold completed his B.A. Honours and his M.A. in Political Science at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, and earned his doctoral degree in political science, with the supervision of Allan Kornberg, at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. His professional career took him to academic appointments in political science at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, and, as Ashbel Smith Professor, to the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. His professional career further featured co-editorships of The Journal of Electoral Studies and of Political Research Quarterly, Director of the Division of Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, and teaching in the methodology programs at Essex University UK, Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and other institutions.
With substantial research awards from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, from the Economic and Social Research Council UK, from the National Science Foundation US, and from other sponsors; with 21 books with Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and other publishers; and with multiple articles in the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, and other major journals, Harold, individually or collaboratively, has made significant research contributions. These include research design, data collection and analysis, and research publications that have advanced knowledge and understanding of the contingent nature of public support in a representative democracy, and of elections and the performance-based evaluations that many people bring to their electoral choices in America, Britain, Canada, Taiwan, and other democracies. And, with research methodology expertise and extraordinary teaching skills, Harold Clarke significantly helped students to learn and to use multilevel modeling, survey research methodology, structural equation modeling, and time series analysis to address interesting and important research questions.
During nearly fifty years together, Harold, Marianne Stewart, his wife and colleague, and their adopted cats made their home in contemporary houses filled with Canadian Inuit art, natural beauty, fun-to-drive cars, great music, and O-gauge model trains. Harold Clarke died, in the care of Marianne and of Nicole Howard, PA, and other close medical staff, and in the prayers of his family in Canada, of COVID-pneumonia at UT Southwestern-Clements University Hospital, in Dallas, Texas, on January 11, 2022.
Disliked by some and much liked and respected by many, “The H” had “a presence that filled the room” with energy, enthusiasm, inspiration, and intellect.
Marianne Stewart, and family, friends, neighbors, collaborators, colleagues, students, and others who shared their memories of Harold and expressed their tributes to him in cards, conversations, emails, flowers, and photographs gratefully received by Marianne.
