Merwin Crawford Young

M. Crawford Young joined the political science faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1963, following completion of his doctorate at Harvard University.  He also served as visiting professor at Makerere University in Uganda (1965-66),  the Lubumbashi campus of the former National University of Zaire (now Congo-Kinshasa, 1973-75), and the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, Senegal (1987-88).  His major publications include Politics in the Congo (Princeton UP, 1965), The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), Ideology and Development in Africa (Yale UP, 1982), The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, co-authored with Thomas Turner (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), and The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (Yale UP, 1994).  The Politics of Cultural Pluralism won the Herskovits Prize (best book in African Studies, African Studies Association, 1977), and was co-winner of the Ralph Bunche Prize (best book in comparative ethnicity over past five years, American Political Science Association, 1979).  The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective won the Gregory Luebbert Award (best book in comparative politics, Comparative Politics Section, APSA, 1995).

He served as President of the African Studies Association (1982-83), and won the ASA Distinguished Africanist Award (1990).  At his University, he served as Chair of the African Studies Program (1964-68), Chair of the Department of Political Science (1969-72, 1984-87), Associate Dean of the Graduate School (1968-71), and Acting Dean of the College of Letters & Science (1991-92).  He held a Fulbright Fellowship in Senegal in 1987-88, and was also invited as a  fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), 1980-81, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1983-84).  He retired in 2001.