Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Buffalo, died on June 2, 2021. Fred served as associate professor from 1970 to 1976, when he was promoted to the rank of full professor. He also served with distinction as associate vice provost for undergraduate education.
Fleron was born on October 4, 1937, in Boston, the son of Frederic J. Fleron and Esther (Adams) Fleron. Fred grew up in Trenton, NJ; Wellesley Hills, MA; and Dover, MA. After attending public schools in Dover and Needham, he graduated from The Rivers Country Day School in Chestnut Hill before attending Brown University where he received his AB degree in 1959 and AM degree in 1961. During his years at Brown University, he took summer courses at Harvard University from some of the leading political scientists in the world, including Samuel Beer, Louis Hartz, Hans Kohn, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. While at Brown, he served as a proctor, resident fellow, teaching assistant, and lecturer.
Fred then entered the graduate program in political science and Russian studies at Indiana University (Bloomington) where he received his PhD in 1969. He entered IU with a Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship and subsequently served as a graduate assistant of the Russian and East European Institute as well as teaching associate and lecturer in the Department of Government. While there, Fred formed deep and lifelong friendships with (among others) Bob Sharlet and Erik Hoffman. Applying their epistemological training from a seminar on the philosophy of social science with Professor Milton Hobbs to critique existing Soviet studies literature, the trio were referred to by others in the field as “the Indiana Mafia.”
Fred’s teaching career began at the University of Kentucky in 1965. In 1970 he accepted a position as associate professor with tenure in the department of political science at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he worked from 1970-2003. He was promoted to full professor in 1976. During his tenure at SUNY Buffalo, Fred served terms as director of undergraduate studies, director of graduate studies, and acting chair of political science. He also was a senior member of the new undergraduate college charged with developing a new general education curriculum for all UB undergraduates, and he served for several years as Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education under the direction of President Stephen B. Sample and Vice Provost John Thorpe.
After retiring from SUNY Buffalo, Fred moved to the mountains of Colorado for a few years and then to Western Massachusetts where he ended his teaching career as an adjunct faculty member at Westfield State University.
During his teaching career, Fred taught more than two dozen different undergraduate and graduate courses ranging from Soviet politics and foreign policy to United States government and foreign policy, politics and technology, political sociology, American public policy, comparative politics, introduction to political inquiry, political culture, public policy analysis, comparative bureaucracy, political change, the Iraq War, building democracies, politics of technology and culture, and comparative politics frontiers.
During the 1970s, Fred was invited by McGeorge Bundy to serve as a member of the East-West Technology Transfer Advisory Panel, Office of Technology Assessment, United States Congress, 1978-79. He was invited by Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson to participate in two Airlie House Conferences on the 24th CPSA Congress and Domestic Determinants of Soviet Foreign Policy sponsored by School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. He also served as a consultant to the CIA, White House Staff, State Department, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Fred made presentations of his research at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, and Northwestern University, among others.
Fred was a member of the ACLS Planning Group on Comparative Communist Studies from 1969-1975 under the chairmanship of Robert C. Tucker. He received a grant to chair a conference on Technology and Communist Culture sponsored by the Planning Group on Comparative Communist Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies (under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation). Fred convened that conference at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy, 1975. The proceedings of that conference were published in 1977 under the title Technology and Communist Culture: The Socio-Cultural Impact of Technology Transfer under Socialism. The organizing theme of the conference was Fred’s new mediation theory of technology which was not followed up on until some 40 years later, when Fred was finally able to work on a book manuscript (under final editing with an academic publisher).
Fred also received a summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was nominated for the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and was an Associate of the Harriman Institute on Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, Columbia University, New York, 1992-95.
Fred’s major publications focused on three different themes: co-optation, congruence, and mediation. His studies of co-optation applied and tested Philip Selznick’s theory of co-optation to Soviet politics in the eras of Khrushchev and Brezhnev that appeared in a number of refereed journals and book chapters. His study of congruence applied Harry Eckstein’s congruence theory to Russian politics in the post-Soviet era. Eckstein and other scholars participated in that project which was published as Can Democracy Take Roots in Post-Soviet Russia? Explorations in State-Society Relations. Finally, he developed a mediation theory of technology and a social science philosophy of technology that were the focus of the manuscripts he was completing at the time of his death.
In addition to more than 20 book chapters and articles in refereed journals, Fred published a dozen books—the most important of which are Communist Studies and the Social Sciences: Essays on Methodology and Empirical Theory (1969), Technology and Communist Culture: The Socio-Cultural Impact of Technology Transfer under Socialism (1977), Soviet Foreign Policy: Classic and Contemporary Issues (1991), Post-Communist Studies and Political Science (1993), Russian Studies and Comparative Politics: Views from Metatheory and Middle-Range Theory (2017), The Logic of Political Inquiry (in progress), and one additional book in the process of being completed.
Fred’s former SUNY Buffalo colleagues and students have planned a festschrift to honor him for his many outstanding contributions to scholarship. This project, which is edited by one of his former doctoral students, Guoli Liu (now professor of political science at the College of Charleston), is also an indication of the respect he commanded as a passionate and dedicated educator and mentor who helped shape the lives and careers of countless students. The work is currently being reviewed by a potential publisher.
Fred was an early civil rights activist, a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Kentucky Civil Liberties Union, and a principled community leader who participated in the nationwide opposition to the Vietnam War. He served on the Board of the Southern Conference Education Fund, organizing against racism, segregation and poverty. This passion for justice continued throughout his life and career—both in and outside of the classroom.
Fred’s exuberance for life was on full display in many varied settings. He was a lifelong lover of books: writing them (seven published; two in final preparation and more planned at the time of his death), reading them, and gifting them to his many friends and relatives. Fred was a “foodie” before the term was coined. Cooking, recipe planning, the hunt for a new restaurant (whether it was a clam shack in Maine or haute cuisine in Washington, DC .), the return to a favorite joint visited many years before, or just a simple bowl of ice cream with one cookie for his beloved afternoon “tiffin.” All of these foodie quirks were about much more than sustenance; to Fred, it was “great sport.”
Music also brought Fred immense joy. He sang, played (guitar, banjo, dobro and occasional cello), attended music festivals and concerts regularly in every era of his life and listened to a wide range of musical genres—from folk and bluegrass through symphony orchestra. His yearly CD mixes, called “Fred’s Favorites,” were shared far and wide and are still a staple of many friends’ collections.
Apart from these hobbies, there was nothing Fred loved more than precious gatherings with loved ones. Among other things, to Fred, gatherings meant storytelling, and he was a master. He would regale listeners with stories of his early adventures sailing, playing guitar with Dave van Ronk on a stoop in Greenwich Village, his involvement in the Attica Brothers legal defense, his experiences in Moscow, and more. Each of Fred’s stories was vivid, detailed, grand, and (mainly) accurate. The ultimate narrator, Fred told his stories with gusto, deep laughter, an occasional giggle, a commanding voice, and wonderful flair. He found equal joy in listening to the stories of others. Fred was a stalwart friend and could always be counted on to lend an ear or a hand, on anything from managing a horse farm to running a political campaign.
Fred is survived by his wife Kimberly A. Kerns, his children Julian F. Fleron and Ingeri Nel Eaton, three grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.■
