KU News Release

KU political scientist selected to speak in U.S. State Department programs in China

Burdett Loomis

LAWRENCE — For the second time this year, the U.S. State Department has invited University of Kansas professor of political science Burdett Loomis to speak abroad on the U.S. political system.

Loomis, author or editor of more than 25 books on U.S. politics, will leave Sept. 13 for a two-week speaking tour in five cities in China. In February, he embarked on a similar State Department assignment in Malaysia and Singapore.

He will meet with students, scholars and journalists in Beijing, Changchun, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Nanjing. It will be Loomis’ first visit to China.

In February, Loomis spoke in Malaysia and Singapore on the 2008 elections, the role of interest groups in U.S. politics and the emergence of highly polarized politics in the United States. His audience included groups of students, faculty members and journalists. Loomis has made similar speaking tours in Brazil, the British West Indies and Mexico, and has served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Argentina.

For Malaysia and Singapore, Loomis had prepared three different lectures, but the questions he received centered on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. Frequently contacted by both U.S. and foreign journalists, Loomis said Obama’s candidacy in particular has evoked an overwhelming international interest in this year’s elections.

“Unlike 10 or 15 years ago, in this Internet era, lots of people around the world are well informed about current political events in the United States,” Loomis said. “By and large the people who come to these lectures are interested in the United States, particularly the elections. They know a lot about current political news, but are often not as knowledgeable about the context of the U.S. electoral process or the political system including the separation of powers or the limits of presidential powers.”

Loomis packs a bag of Jayhawk lapel pins to offer his hosts and a U.S. map to help audiences locate Kansas. “They usually know metaphorically about Kansas from the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ I tell them it is smack dab in the middle of the country.”

He is on sabbatical leave this academic year to work on a new book about Kansas politics. He is focusing on the tremendous change and dislocations that took place in Kansas politics from 1960 through 1975, when “the state was yanked out of the 19th century, into the late 20th century, for better or for worse.”

Loomis’ books include “The Contemporary Congress,” “Time, Politics and Policies: A Legislative Year,” “The New American Politician,” “Esteemed Colleagues: Civility and Deliberation in the United States Senate” and “The Sound of Money,” written with Darrell West. He is co-editor of “Choosing a President” and co-author of “Republic on Trial.” He and Al Cigler, KU professor of political science, are co-editors of seven editions each of “Interest Group Politics” and “American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings.”

Loomis was director of administrative communication for Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in 2005 and interim director of KU’s Dole Institute of Politics from 1997 through 2001. He has directed KU’s Washington, D.C., and Topeka internship programs since the 1980s. Loomis was a Brookings Institution guest scholar in 1984, 1996 and 2000. In 1984, he directed the Congressional Management Project at American University in Washington, D.C., and edited “Setting Course,” a guide for new members of Congress.

Loomis received a 1996 W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at KU and a 1975 congressional fellowship with the American Political Science Association.

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