Sir David Edgeworth Butler (17 October 1924 – 8 November 2022) was an English political scientist who specialised in psephology, the study of elections. He has been described as "the father of modern election science".

Early life

Born in London, Butler was the son of Harold Edgeworth Butler, Professor of Latin at University College, London by his wife, Margaret, née Pollard. Through his mother, he was the grandson of the historian A. F. Pollard. The politician R. A. Butler was a second cousin. Butler was educated at St Paul's School and New College, Oxford. His time at Oxford was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he saw service as a tank commander in the Staffordshire Yeomanry and crossed the Rhine during the latter stages of the war. After the war, he resumed his studies at Oxford, then proceeded to Princeton University as a Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow from 1947 to 1948. He returned to Oxford as a researcher and academic at Nuffield College, where he taught throughout the remainder of his academic career.

Career

Between 1956 and 1957, Butler served as personal assistant to the British Ambassador to the United States. Butler was the author of many publications, but his most notable work is the series of Nuffield Election Studies which covers every United Kingdom General Election since 1945. Early co-authors included Richard Rose and Anthony King. From 1974 to 2005, the series was co-authored with Dennis Kavanagh. Butler was a commentator on the BBC's election night coverage from the 1950 election to the 1979 election, and was a co-inventor of the swingometer. He later appeared as an electoral analyst on various television and radio programmes, including for ITV on the night of the 1997 general election, and Sky News election night coverage in 2001. He also appeared as a guest on the BBC's coverage of both the 2010 and 2015 general elections. His book, Political Change in Britain: Forces Shaping Electoral Choice (Macmillan, 1969), written with US political scientist Donald E. Stokes, brought modern American science treatments to the United Kingdom. His Governing Without a Majority: Dilemmas for Hung Parliaments in Britain (Sheridan House, 1986) provides an analysis of the phenomenon of the hung parliament in Britain. He sat on the editorial board of the academic journal Representation. After 1973, Butler was involved in founding and organising the Oxford University Australian Politics Lunch, which "has only one rule, you are not allowed to talk about anything except Australian politics." Notable lunch attendees included the Australian Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley.

Honours

Butler was an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1994. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours List and knighted in the 2011 New Years Honours List for services to political science. Butler was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex in 1993.

Personal life

Butler was married to Professor Marilyn Butler (died March 2014), a former rector of Exeter College, Oxford, the first woman to head a previously all-male college. They had three sons. Butler lived in Oxford. The Conservative politician Rab Butler was his cousin. Butler died in Oxfordshire, of renal failure, on 8 November 2022, at the age of 98.

Books on British politics

Books on international politics

Comparative international studies

Books on American politics

Books on Australian politics

Books on Indian politics

Nuffield Election Studies

Nuffield Studies: British General Elections

(Only the volumes edited or co-edited by Butler are listed here; the first two volumes, for the elections of 1945 and 1950, had Butler as a contributor, but were edited by others; since 2010, the series has been edited by others.)

Nuffield Study: 1975 EEC Referendum

Nuffield Studies: European Elections

(No book on the 1989 European elections was produced, due to Butler being in America for much of the early part of 1989. Unlike the 'British General Election' series, which had Editors before and after Butler, the European election series started with Butler, and was not continued thereafter, beyond the volume on the 2004 election.)

British Political Facts series

(Subsequent editions since the 11th edition in 2018 have been edited by Roger Mortimore and Andrew Blick, and have been renamed Butler's British Political Facts.)

American Enterprise Institute At the Polls comparative studies series

(Please note that only the volumes co-edited by Butler are listed here.)

Book chapters

(Butler also anonymously wrote various analytical chapters of the 'Times Guide to the House of Commons' series from the 1960s to the 1980s.)

Peer-reviewed articles

(Butler was also the founding co-Editor of the peer-reviewed academic journal 'Electoral Studies', from 1982 to 1992.)

Books on Butler