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Walter Dean Burnham (b. 1930), is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held the Frank Erwin Centennial Chair in Government. He is an expert in the analysis of elections. He received his AB from Johns Hopkins University in 1951 and his AM (1958) and Ph.D (1963) from Harvard University. Prior to coming to UT in 1988, he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He retired in 2003. Burnham was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and he served as President of the Politics and History Section of the American Political Science Association.

Burnham is a specialist in election returns, and a leading expert on the sources of data for the ICPSR. He is famous for interpreting the data.

The frequency of its citation in the footnotes of other works indicates that Burnham's article "The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe" (1965) was highly influential. The majority of citations focus on the themes of voter turnout decline, realignment in 1896, and explanations for voter decline. The theory of elite, capitalist control of the political system in the 20th century has gained less attention and support, but deserves extended qualitative evaluation.^[1]

• "The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe" American Political Science Review (1965) in JSTOR
• Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (1970) (summary)
• Politics/America: The Cutting Edge of Change (1972)
• The Current Crisis in American Politics (1982)
• Democracy in the Making: American Government and Politics (1986), textbook

• Beck, Paul Allen. "Micropolitics in Macro Perspective: the Political History of Walter Dean Burnham." Social Science History 1986 10(3): 221-245. Issn: 0145-5532 Fulltext in Jstor
• Jensen, Richard. "The Changing Shape of Burnham`s Political Universe," Social Science History 10 (1986) 209-19 Issn: 0145-5532 Fulltext in Jstor

1. ^ Beck (1986)