
Generations of political science students — and law and history students for that matter — have had cause to be grateful for the scholarship and lucid prose of Richard Mulgan, having consulted his comprehensive and highly readable textbooks Democracy and Power in New Zealand and Politics In New Zealand.
Having gone through three editions (the most recent updated by Peter Aimer) since the first in 1994, Politics In New Zealand is a tome which endured, likely due to the mission statement set out in Prof Mulgan’s foreword: "While every attempt has been made to keep the writing as simple and jargon-free as possible, no apology is given for treating politics as the subject of professional academic analysis."
That Richard Grant Mulgan should be a serious academic and a talented writer should have surprised no-one. His great-grandfather was journalist, academic and author Edward Mulgan, his grandfather was journalist and author Alan Mulgan, and he was born in 1940 in Oxford, England, the son of Gabrielle and author John Mulgan. Soon after, his father sent his wife and young Richard back to New Zealand, where they lived with John’s parents in Days Bay, Wellington, for the duration of World War 2.
John Mulgan, author of Man Alone, still a set text in many an English class in New Zealand schools, died of a morphine overdose in 1945 while on active service in Greece — he had been awarded the Military Cross for his exploits.
Prof Mulgan could have been forgiven for finding his famous surname a heavy legacy to bear, but in later life he contributed a foreword to a book about the father he barely knew.
Raised by his mother and stepfather Paul Day, Prof Mulgan graduated with a BA in classics from the University of New Zealand (Auckland), before returning to England to complete an MA in classics and BPhil in political studies at Oxford, also in classics, matriculating from Merton College in 1960.
Although his primary field of endeavour at this time was classics, a lively interest in politics — a preoccupation of his famous forebears as well — was never far from the surface. His first major field of study was the philosophy of Aristotle — he published a major work on the subject, Aristotle's Political Theory (Oxford University Press), and the nature and function of the state was a central question in most of his academic work.
In 1964 Prof Mulgan married Margaret Bedggood, a fellow classicist, lawyer and honorary professor at the University of Waikato who was the chief human rights commissioner from 1989-94 and later the Dean of Law at Waikato. They had three children — Nicholas, Timothy and Lucy.

He was approached by the University of Otago with an offer which was too good to refuse, the chair of its classics department. He arrived in the South in 1970 with a brief to modernise the department, and soon introduced a first-year course in ancient history and secured a seventh staff position with the intention of establishing ancient history as a major in its own right.
That plan morphed into a multidisciplinary classical studies major, and the department was able to keep student numbers steady, even though the numbers studying Greek and Latin were in decline.
For a small department with a heavy teaching load, classics punched above its weight during Prof Mulgan’s time: staff published 32 articles and five books.
In 1978, Prof Mulgan, confident that the department was on a firm footing, followed his heart and returned to the increasingly fascinating realm of political science.
He took a step down from professor to associate professor when he changed from classics to political studies at Otago, but was promoted back to a personal chair a few years later. He also got to work alongside internationally respected academic Jim Flynn as one of the two chair holders in the department.
Having two heavyweights in the field at the helm made Otago a force in political studies at the time and Prof Mulgan, who by now had a reputation as a rigorously honest academic as well as a thoughtful, caring, encouraging and humorous colleague, found himself in demand.
Prof Mulgan was also a respected administrator and filled various roles of increasing responsibility, including being acting vice-chancellor when Robin Irvine took a sabbatical in 1987.
In the mid-1980s he accepted a position on the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, a two-year investigation into whether New Zealand should change its electoral system from first-past-the-post (FPP) to some form of proportional representation.

Respected political scientist Nigel Roberts said Prof Mulgan certainly had been originally, believing that the absolute majorities usually delivered by FPP meant parties would be free to deliver on their manifesto commitments.
However, a string of what Prof Mulgan perceived to be broken promises made by the Labour government led by David Lange changed his mind. The commission had hoped to deliver a unanimous report in the hope of avoiding accusations of division or partisanship, and Prof Mulgan’s volte-face meant that a surprisingly strongly worded report was issued which endorsed change to the mixed member proportional (MMP) system New Zealand now uses.
After the report’s release Prof Mulgan accepted a position at the University of Auckland, joking as he left Dunedin that he had had to sell a house without a garage to be able to buy a garage without a house.
His major achievement at Auckland was writing Politics in New Zealand, the first edition of which was published by the university press in 1994. Drawing upon Democracy and Power in New Zealand but completely revamped and reimagined to survey the new post-MMP political landscape, it was both authoritative and entertaining, the latter being a rare feat for a university textbook.
Another landmark publication was Maori, Pakeha and Democracy, a 1989 examination of the contemporary state of play in the rapidly evolving sphere of race relations and politics.
Away from academia, Prof Mulgan and his wife Margaret separated in 1992. Prof Mulgan married fellow academic Aurelia George Mulgan, a political scientist at the Australian Defence Force Academy, in Canberra in 1993, becoming stepfather to two sons, Richard and Nicholas.
His new marriage coincided with a move to Canberra and Prof Mulgan taking the chair in public policy at the Australian National University, where he would work until his retirement in 2008 and assumption of the title professor emeritus at the Crawford School of Economics and Government.
It did not take Prof Mulgan long to adapt to his new surroundings: he contributed a monthly column to the Canberra Times and published several further articles and books, including Holding Power to Account. Accountability in Modern Democracies (2003) and Making Open Government Work (2014).
Prof Mulgan was still working and writing throughout his retirement, including compiling a substantial report which was finished just before his death in Canberra on November 14, aged 84. — Mike Houlahan