Richard W. Boyd is Professor of Government Emeritus at
Wesleyan. He received his B.A. from the University
of Texas, Austin, in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington,
in 1967. He taught at Wesleyan from 1969 to 2006. His research fields are in American politics,
public opinion and electoral politics, and public opinion and foreign policy.
He served as Dean of the Social Sciences and Director of the Public
Affairs Center. 
RICHARD
W. BOYD
Last Revised: January, 2013
Current Address:
687 Camellia Way
Los Altos, CA 94024
650-209-5194
Link to Richard's and Martha's Personal Page
Professional Links:
Publications
Last Web Versions of Courses
Forthcoming Chapter
"Obama and the Public Mood." Chapter 3, Obama in Office. James A. Thurber (ed.) Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011. PDF File.
The model specification, tables, and appendix, omitted from the published version of the chapter above, are presented in this abridged version of "The American Election of 2008: The Possibilities of Change in a Mature Party System," Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, San Francisco, CA, July 7-10. PDF File
Selected Conference Papers and Work in Progress
Paper, "The Elusive Concept of Issue Publics: Issue Salience in American Elections." A revised version of a paper co-authored with Steven M. Wengrovitz presented at the 28th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Toronto, Canada, July 3-6, 2005. PDF File
Paper, "Vital Statistics: Births, Deaths, Immigration, and Political Change," presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 12-15, 2007. PDF File Paper. PDF File Tables and Figures.
Paper, The Influence of Mass and Elite Foreign Policy Beliefs on Judgments of Presidential Performance." A revised version of a paper co-authored with Jeffrey B. Lewis presented at the Joint Annual Convention of the British International Studies Association and the International Studies Association, London, March 28-April 1, 1989. 2 PDF Files: Paper Figures
Publications
Richard Hofstetter, Richard W. Boyd, and Douglas Van Houweling, "A FORTRAN 3400/3600 Program for Computing Multiple‑Scale Guttman Scalogram Analyses," Behavioral Science, 12 (November, 1967), 500‑501.
Richard W. Boyd, "Presidential Elections: An Explanation of Voting Defection," American Political Science Review, 63 (June, 1969), 498‑515. PDF File
_______, and James T. Murphy, "The House in '71: a Prediction," The New Republic, October 24, 1970. PDF File
_______, "Popular Control of Government: A Normal Vote Analysis of the 1968 Election," American Political Science Review, 66 (June, 1972), 429‑449 and 468‑470. PDF File
_______, "Electoral Trends in Postwar Politics," in James David Barber (ed.), Choosing the President (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‑Hall, 1974), pp. 175‑201. PDF File
_______, with Herbert H. Hyman, "Survey Research," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, vol. VII, (Reading: Addison‑Wesley, 1975), pp. 265‑350. PDF Files Part 1 Part 2
_______, "E. E. Schattschneider," in David L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: Biographical Supplement (New York: The Free Press, 1979), pp. 697‑701. PDF File
_______, "Decline of U.S. Voter Turnout: Structural Explanations," American Politics Quarterly, 9 (April, 1981), 133‑159. PDF File
_______, and David J. Hadley, "Presidential and Congressional Response to Political Crisis: Nixon, Congress, and Watergate," Congress and the Presidency, 10 (Autumn, 1983), 195‑217. Reprinted in Joel H. Silbey (ed.), The Congress of the United States, 1789-1989, vol. 8, The Modern American Congress, 1963-1989, Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1991. PDF File
_______, "Electoral Change in the United States and Great Britain," British Journal of Political Science, 15 (October, 1985), 517‑528. PDF File
_______, "Election Calendars and Voter Turnout," American Politics Quarterly, 14 (January‑April, 1986), 89‑104. PDF File
_______, "Electoral Change and the Floating Voter: The Reagan Elections," Political Behavior, 8 (1986), 230‑244. PDF File
Martha Crenshaw and Richard W. Boyd, "The 99th Congress and the Response to International Terrorism," in Congress and Foreign Policy 1985‑1986. Prepared by the Congressional Research Service for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 1987. PDF File
______, with others, "The 1984 Election as Anthony Downs and Stanley Kelley Might Interpret It," Political Behavior, 10 (Fall, 1988), 197-213. PDF File
______, "The Effects of Primaries and Statewide Races on Voter Turnout," Journal of Politics, 51 (August, 1989), 730-739. PDF File
______, “World War II–Era Elections: 1942-1958,” John G. Geer (ed.), Public Opinion and Polling around the World: A Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. I, ABC-Clio Press, 2004, pp. 109-120. PDF File
______,"Obama and the Public Mood." 2011 Chapter 3, Obama in Office. James A. Thurber (ed.) Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. PDF File.
Back to Professional Links
Last Web Versions of Courses
Spring 2006
Government 232 - Public Opinion and Electoral Politics
Fall 2005
Government 366 - Statistics for Social Scientists
Spring 2003
Fall 2003