Gabriel Almond Award ($750)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the field of comparative politics.

Award Committee: Vivien A. Schmidt, Boston University, chair; John Echeverri-Gent, University of Virginia; and Robert Vitalis, University of Pennsylvania.

Recipient: Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University

Dissertation: “Constructing a Federal State: Political Development, Path Dependence, and the Origins of Fed er al ism in Modern Europe, 1815–1871”

Dissertation Chair: Kenneth Jowitt, University of California, Berkeley

Citation: The committee had a very difficult choice to make among several excellent dissertations. This year's winner, Daniel Ziblatt, links political economic, institutional, and cultural analysis in his inquiry into the origins of federalism in Germany and Italy. His main argument offers a counter to mainstream Rikerian rational choice approaches to federalism, which assume that leaders with political economic and/or military power would always prefer to create unitary states, and agree to federalism only where the periphery has substantial balancing power over the center. Instead, Ziblatt dem on strates that neither central power nor leaders' ideas or national culture alone can explain federal outcomes. Rather, sub-national institutional capacity is a much better predictor of federal or unitary institutions. In the case of Germany, although the Prussian leadership had the military and political economic power to impose a unitary state, it preferred a negotiated federal settlement because it better met foreign and domestic policy concerns. But this settlement was possible only because the regional states had the institutional capacity to negotiate as well as to administer such a settlement. In the case of Italy, although the leadership would also have preferred a negotiated settlement, the lack of institutional capacity of the regional states, internally weak and/or foreign controlled, made the military imposition of a unitary state ruled from Piedmont inevitable.

This dissertation is rich in qualitative discussion of the ideas, history, and cultural heritage of both countries as well as in quantitative measures of political economic and military power. As such, it represents the best of the current trend toward using a mix of methods to make a strong empirical case that provides significant theoretical insights into questions central to the field of comparative politics.

William Anderson Award ($750)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the general field of federalism or in ter governmental relations, or state and local politics.

Award Committee: James Manor, University of Sussex, chair; Robert Agranoff, Indiana University; and Yoshiko M. Herrera, Harvard University.

Recipient: Christopher Berry, Harvard University

Dissertation: “Imperfect Union: Fiscal Externalities in Multi-Level Governments.”

Dissertation Chair: Mark Hansen, University of Chicago

Citation: This dissertation begins with a very interesting empirical observation, which is that although the Tiebout model of horizontal competition dominates scholarly thinking about the political economy of local government, in fact territorially overlapping jurisdictions in America have proliferated over the last half-century, leading to a great deal of vertical competition and related common pool resource problems. Recognizing the realities of horizontal intergovernmental relations, Berry deals with the vertical competition introduced by overlapping governmental units as they compete for the same tax base. In particular, he develops quantitative models of the impact of institutional changes (the proliferation of local special districts as competitors in the tax “market place,”) demonstrating upward trends, i.e., higher aggregate taxes.

Dr. Berry presents a formal model of taxation incorporating overlapping local government jurisdictions, and then an empirical analysis of taxation and spending in U.S. counties, which shows a positive relationship between jurisdictional overlap and the size of the local public sector. Finally, he analyzes parties as a way of institutionalizing and governing the local fiscal commons, so as to avert a “tragedy of the commons.”

After demonstration of each component of the main model, the alternative explanations of endogeniety, differential service levels, and economies of scale are explored and factored in. The choice of political party as a common pool mediator does demonstrate effects on mitigating the prisoner's dilemma.

The primary strength of this thesis is the innovative and parsimonious idea in considering vertical as opposed to horizontal competition only. It is a very focused analysis, methodologically smooth, and supported by adequate empirical analysis.

Edward S. Corwin Award ($750)

Awarded annually for the best dissertation in the field of public law.

Award Committee: Mark Kessler, Bates College, chair; Roger Hartley, University of Arizona; Tom Keck, Syracuse University.

Recipient: Tamir Moustafa, University of Wisconsin Dissertation: “Law Versus the State: The Expansion of Constitutional Power in Egypt, 1980–2001”

Dissertation Chair: Joel Migdal, University of Washington

Citation: Tamir Moustafa's original, creative, and interdisciplinary dissertation emerged as the most outstanding among an impressive group of contenders. Moustafa begins by assessing why an authoritarian state, Egypt, created an independent constitutional court and then traces the complex relationship between the state and this court over time. The court provided benefits to the regime by supporting and protecting rights of private property and, thus, encouraged foreign investment during a time of economic stagnation. But the court also rendered decisions that threatened the regime by supporting claims of opposition parties and human rights organizations, in stitutions that in turn offered important sources of political support to the court. The decisions perceived as a threat by the regime, and the political alliances that resulted, led the regime to eventually undermine the court's political support structures and, ultimately, the powers of the court itself.

The important questions raised in this dissertation have broad implications for understanding contemporary move ments toward democratization, the role of constitutional courts in developing societies, and the related judicialization of politics. These questions are clearly and persuasively placed in the context of multiple scholarly literatures and debates in rational choice institutionalism, comparative political research on statecivil society relationships, and comparative public law. Moustafa skillfully employs findings from 15 months of field research in Egypt to show that a basic premise of rational choice institutionalism, that reforms are instituted in order to provide credible commitments to property rights, illuminates the creation of an independent constitutional court. But, as important, he shows that this framework fails to recognize the profound significance of politics, political context, and political contestation after the reform is in place. Moustafa's research calls attention to historical contingency and the ex plan a to ry significance of political power, the dynamic interactions between judicial institutions and support structures in their environment, and the evolving nature of such institutions and their interactions with other actors. Addressing short com ings in rational choice institutionalism by interpreting his findings in light of works in the state-civil society tradition, he offers an important theoretical corrective that is firmly ground in extraordinary empirical research.

Moustafa's research, thus, is both theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich. His mastery of various theoretical frameworks, their assumptions and consequences, and connections between and among them is clearly demonstrated in each of the beautifully written chapters. He is careful to explore not only the frame work he develops, but also major alternatives identifi ed in the diverse scholarly literatures upon which he draws. He blends together in a seamless way various sources of data—from close readings and quantitative analyses of court rulings, to interviews with many of the central participants, including high court justices, to extensive archival materials, to the many conversations and observations produced by his extensive field research. He then employs these findings with great dexterity to address significant theoretical questions as well as practical, policy issues of interest not only within public law, but more generally in the fields of comparative politics and political economy. This dissertation is a model of theoretically driven, substantively significant, and politically engaged research. It is therefore a pleasure for the Committee to name Tamir Moustafa the recipient of the 2004 Edward S. Corwin Award.

Although no honorable mention or runner-up category exists, the Com mit tee wishes to acknowledge the excellent dissertations of Mathew Manweller (completed at the University of Oregon) and Martin Sweet completed at the University of Wisconsin).

Harold D. Lasswell Award ($1,000)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the fi eld of policy studies.

Award Committee: Amy Bridges, University of California, San Diego, chair; Nicole E. Johnson, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg; R. Shep Melnick, Boston College.

Recipient: Suzanne Christine Nielsen, U.S. Army

Dissertation: “Preparing for War: The Dynamics of Peacetime Military Reform”

Dissertation Chair: Stephen Peter Rosen, Harvard

Citation: Suzanne Nielson's dissertation addresses a question that is both perennial and of great contemporary importance: How can a large army achieve fundamental reform during times of peace? She argues that the impetus for reform must come from within the military, not be imposed on it by civilians; that comprehensive change requires support from an or ganizational entity that has broad authority reaching nearly every corner of the army; and that reforms must be institutionalized in the details of training practices, personnel policies, and leadership development programs.

Nielson develops these themes in a rich, detailed investigation of the transformation of the U.S. Army in the 1970s and early 1980s. She combines extensive use of military documents, oral histories, congressional hearings, specialized publications, and the secondary literature with an impressive understanding of the operation of military organizations. Nielson supplements her examination of the U.S. Army with short case studies on the French army before World War I and the British and German armies between the wars.

Nielson demonstrates the usefulness of applying insights gained from analysis of domestic policymaking to the realm of the military. She also helps us understand how training and personnel practices help shape a complex bureaucracy's sense of mission, an intangible factor of central importance for comprehensive organizational reform. In the process she manages to make a complex story understandable to those who are not experts on military policy.

Helen Dwight Reid Award ($750)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the field of international relations, law, and politics.

Award Committee: Stuart J. Kaufman, University of Kentucky, chair; Deborah Gould, University of Chicago; and Jennifer Sterling-Folker, University of Connecticut.

Recipient: Helen M. Kinsella, University of Minnesota

Dissertation: “The Image Before the Weapon: A Genealogy of the ‘Civilian’ in International Law and Politics.’

Dissertation Co-Chairs: Lisa Disch and KathrynSikkink, University of Minnesota

Citation: We have selected Helen Kinsella's dissertation (University of Minnesota) “The Image Before the Weapon: A Genealogy of the ‘Civilian’ in In ter na tion al Law and Politics” for this year's Helen Dwight Reid Award. This dis ser ta tion impressively blends the study of international norms, international law, and military practice to make an important contribution to our understanding of the origins and nature of the laws of war. Using a genealogical analysis and drawing from wide-ranging empirical case material, Kinsella successfully demonstrates how discourses of gender, innocence, and civilization together have shaped the development and meaning of the laws of war, particularly the principle of dis crim i na tion between “combatants” and civilians.

Going beyond a discussion of com pli ance with the norm of civilian immunity, Kinsella inquires into the production of the principle of discrimination itself, and indeed into the production of the very categories of the “combatant” and the civilian. She analyzes important historical junctures, including the formulation of the principle of discrimination within Christian canonical law and the chivalric codes of the 11th–15th centuries; Grotius' and de Vitoria's foundational writings on international law which also defended European imperial expansion; the American Civil War; the U.S.-Indian Wars; the decolonization war in Algeria; and the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. In these cases, as Kinsella shows, discourses of gender, innocence, and civilization converged to produce both the categories of “combatant” and “civilian” and the means with which to distinguish between them.

Throughout, she explores the some times contradictory effects of that production of difference on, for example, the treatment of civilians amidst war as well as more broadly on the construction of domestic and international orders themselves. Her genealogy allows her to answer important questions like: how is it possible for “civilians” to be killed in the name of “civilization”; how and why has the principle of discrimination become one by which we govern and judge the actions of our own and other states; how and why has the principle of discrimination constituted the “we” of international politics?

In answering these questions, Kinsella contributes the important fi nding that the laws of war have, from their very origin, served as much to justify war—to make it morally possible, and even to claim the moral high ground for one's side—as to limit it. Western thinkers used the discourse of “civilization” to limit the application of the laws of war, defi ning those who are “uncivilized” as “within the reach of the law but outside its protection.” Thus the 1095 Council of Clermont, Kinsella points out, proclaimed both the Peace of God, establishing chivalric limits on the application of violence, and the First Crusade, whose Muslim targets were not protected by that code. Kinsella points to similar logic used in the sixteenth century by de Vitoria to justify Spanish depredations against American Indians, and by nineteenth-century U.S. military leaders to justify Indian massacres while at the same time white Southerners were spared such treatment during the Civil War. Her conclusion shows the con tem po rary relevance of the study, reflecting on the implications of her findings for our understanding of U.S. behavior and rhetoric in Iraq. In tracing the genealogy of the laws of war, Kinsella has forced us to confront not just their uneven application, but the inconsistencies, tensions, and hypocrisy at their very foundations that have long been used to justify brutality in war.

E. E. Schattschneider Award

Given for the best dissertation in the field of American Politics.

Award Committee: Richard Bensel, Cornell University, chair; Ben Page, Northwestern University; and Paul Peterson, Harvard University.

Recipient: Jeremy David Bailey, Eastern Washington University

Dissertation Chair: Marc Landy, Boston College

Dissertation: “Democratic Energy: Thomas Jefferson and the Development of Presidential Power”

Recipient: David Campbell, University of Notre Dame

Dissertation: “Participation in Context: How Communities and Schools Shape Civic Engagement”

Dissertation Chair: Robert D. Putnam, Harvard University

Citations: The E. E. Schattsneider Award is given to the best dissertation in the field of American politics. Fifteen dissertations were nominated by their home institutions and, after lengthy deliberation and discussion, the committee has awarded the distinction to two young scholars, to be shared equally between them. In alphabetical order, the award is given:

To Jeremy David Bailey of Boston College for his “Democratic Energy: Thomas Jefferson and the Development of Presidential Power.” Bailey explores the ways in which Jefferson's vision of the presidency (and political authority generally) was altered and validated during his two terms in office. His thesis constitutes a very important contribution to the literature on the presidency in at least two senses. First, the dissertation elaborates the way in which Jefferson's political thought was shaped by the actual practice of power, thus vastly increasing our understanding of what Jefferson intended in his theoretical writings. From this perspective, his discussion of the relationship between Jefferson as natural scientist and as president brings out of the shadows how Jefferson understood, within the practice of power, the nature of political man. Second, by reconceptualizing Jefferson's presidency as a theoretical narrative, the thesis precisely identifies the potential and actual contradictions between political responsibility (as stewardship) and obedience to democratic will. Jefferson's attempts to reconcile the two, for example, is brilliantly illustrated in Bailey's discussion of the Louisiana Purchase. In these and other ways, Bailey illuminates one of the premier figures in the development of the modern presidency and, at another level, the creative tension between maintaining philosophical consistency and pragmatically ruling a nation.

To David E. Campbell of Harvard University for his “Participation in Context: How Communities and Schools Shape Civic Engagement.” Campbell develops a “dual motivation theory” as an explanation for why electoral turnout is highest in both very politically competitive areas and those which are consistently dominated by one or the other of the major parties. He convincingly distinguish es between instrumental and civic motivations for participating in elections and then effectively applies the distinction in very extensive data analysis. By combining elements from the literatures on positive theory, sociology, and social psychology, Campbell demonstrates that very different factors are at work in homogenous, one-party communities (where civic duty motivates turnout) and heterogeneous, politically competitive communities (in which individualist instrumental calculations predominate). He then traces the formation of these attitudes back to early socialization, particularly during adolescence when individuals develop ways of relating to their larger communities. Evidencing a broad command of a wide range of literatures and theoretical approaches, Campbell's thesis promises to re-orient the study of mass political behavior and revise our expectations for healthy democracies in the modern world.

Leo Strauss Award ($750)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the field of political philosophy.

Award Committee: Ian Shapiro, Yale University, chair; Will Kymlicka, Queen's University; and Eric A. MacGilvray, University of Sydney.

Recipient: Christina Tarnopolsky, Harvard University

Dissertation: “Plato and the Politics of Shame”

Dissertation Chairs: Nathon Tarcov and Charles Larmore, University of Chicago

Citation: Tarnopolsky provides a rich exploration of the many uses to which shame is put in Plato's Gorgias. The contrast between “flattering” and “respectful” shame she elucidates is both analytically crisp and ripe for further development and application. She does an exemplary job of reading her chosen text carefully and critically, and she dem on strates great insight in elaborating the various ways in which the mechanism of shame operates for good and ill. Hers is therefore that rare textually-oriented dissertation which succeeds in making a clear and important contribution to our understanding of contemporary beliefs and practices. The work is lucid, elegant, and captivating. It draws the reader into sympathetic engagement with Tarnopolsky's project.

Leonard D. White Award ($ 750)

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2002 or 2003 in the field of public administration.

Award Committee: Ann Chih Lin, University of Michigan, chair; Kenneth J. Meier, Texas A&M University; and Donald Rosenthal.

Recipient: Neal D. Woods, University of South Carolina

Dissertation: “Rethinking Regulation: Institutions and Interests in State Regulatory Enforcement”

Dissertation Chair: Edward T. Jennings, Jr., University of Kentucky

Recipient: Young Han Chun, Chung-Ang University

Dissertation: “Goal Ambiguity in Public Organizations: Dimensions, Antecedents, and Comparisons”

Dissertation Chair: Hal G. Rainey, University of Georgia

Citations: The Award Committee is happy to recognize Young Han Chun and Neal Derrick Woods as joint winners of the Leonard D. White Dissertation Award. These dissertations aptly illustrate how new methods and inventive operationalization can help us to explore the agencies that do the government's work and the resolutions they bring to pressing social questions of the day.

Young Han Chun's dissertation, “Goal Ambiguity in Public Organizations: Dimensions, Antecedents, and Consequences,” brings an impressive array of intellectual resources and a commendable appreciation of the intellectual debate to the task of mission definition in public organizations. Chun observes that organizational missions can be ambiguous in many ways: in the clarity of the mission, in the priority given to different tasks, in the ways progress is to be measured, and in the actions that must be taken to accomplish the mission. He shows that structural characteristics of agencies—the importance of revenue-generating activities, regulatory respon sibility, competition among constituencies, independence, and agency longevity—are linked to different kinds of ambiguity and thus face different performance challenges. Chun then goes farther, linking these types of ambiguity to evaluations of agency work, including measures such as customer service, managerial performance, and red tape, as assessed by government employees. Chun uses careful, appropriate, yet creative ways to measure theoretical concepts and collects both organizational and individual level data to test his hypotheses. In the tradition of Herbert Simon, he brings a critical and systematic eye to organization theory, discarding its shibboleths and extending its claims.

Neal Derrick Woods' dis ser ta tion, “Rethinking Regulation: Institutions and Interests in State Regulatory En forcement,” ranges over a broad literature to explore the question of federal delegation of authority to states in regulatory enforcement. Woods argues that the success of delegation will depend not only on the strength and ideology of the players (the federal government, state governments, and business interests), but on the political institutions through which the players act. In a theoretically significant extension of the literature on political control of the bureaucracy, he explores the phenomenon of state-level political control of state agencies and compares this influence to federal oversight activity and to the competitive actions of neighboring states. The dissertation compiles and analyzes an extensive database of state-level enforcement of federal mining and worker safety regulations from 1985–1999, finding clear evidence that the ability of governors and other elected officials to control state bureaucracies has more of an impact on enforcement than federal oversight. He also discovers that political control does not consistently correspond to industry interests, leading to an important set of new questions about the political implications of enforcement activity.

Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award ($750)

For the best paper presented at the previous year's An nu al Meeting. Supported by Pi Sigma Alpha.

Award Committee: Joseph Carens, University of Toronto, chair; Eduardo Velasquez, Washington & Lee University; and Marc Blecher, Oberlin College.

Recipients: Larry W. Chappell, Mississippi Valley State University, and Bernard L. Bray, Talladega College.

Paper: “Civic Theatre for Civic Education”

Recipient: David Woodruff, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Paper: “Boom, Gloom, Doom: Balance Sheets, Monetary Fragmentation, and Financial Crisis in Argentina and Russia”

Citations: The committee determined that the 2004 Franklin L. Burdette Pi Sigma Alpha award for the best paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association should go jointly to two papers: “Civic Theatre for Civic Education,” by Bernard L. Bray of Talladega College, and Larry W. Chappell of Mississippi Valley State University, and “Boom, Gloom, Doom: Balance Sheets, Monetary Fragmentation, and Financial Crisis in Argentina and Russia” by David Woodruff of Mas sa chu setts Institute of Technology.

Professors Bray and Chappell explore the relationship between theater and civic education. This is a relationship fraught with numerous complications, of which the authors are well aware. Chief among them is the tension between and among art, artist, artifact, and society. In what manner could we say that the arts are political, or serve the political ends of citizenship? And how do the political ends taught by art and artist bear on a society that is at least in principle pluralistic and culturally diverse? To be sure, the authors cannot accord equal time to all of the vexed questions insinuated above. That they make the reader aware of these questions, tensions and complications while simultaneously sustaining an argument that remains accessibly clear and persuasive we think is perhaps first among the many virtues of this paper. The authors also manage to scale and then command what is by any reasonable account a daunting precipice constituted by the literature of citizenship and civic engagement. And they do so by going back to the beginning, classical Greek and Modern European sources, while drawing the reader back to the immediate present. In other words, the paper is no mere survey of the written accounts of civic hermeneutics. Those written accounts are brought to bear on various suggestions concerning the use of theatre to address the various ills that now affect what we call (somewhat infelicitously) “civic discourse” and “social capital.”

In “Boom, Gloom, Doom: Balance Sheets, Monetary Fragmentation, and Financial Crisis in Argentina and Russia,” David Woodruff unearths the historico-political roots of financial crisis in Argentina and Russia, two countries which displayed extraordinary collapses in the 1990s. His theory explains why these states persisted in exchange-rate based stabilization programs even after it became clear that these programs were not working. Specifically, he uses balance-sheet analysis to chart the development of institutional connections between creditors and debtors which systematically encouraged the growth of dollar liabilities and domestic currency assets. The political-economic institutions created a constituency for policy continuity that was deeply path-dependent—indeed, Woodruff calls it “locked-in.” He also argues convincingly that the political dynamics swirling around exchange-rate issues are best understood as grounded not in fixed sectoral interests but, rather, in interests on exchange rates and price policy that flow from actors' specific positions in balance-sheet relationships. Finally, he demonstrates that the balance-sheet approach can explain why Argentina clung much harder and longer than Russia to fixed exchange rates, at great cost to its economy. Overall, David Woodruff does a wonderful job of linking a sophisticated financial analysis—the balance-sheet approach—with path dependency, all in the service of a convincing explanation of policy out comes. His approach offers a promising tool for the analysis of monetary crises and policy responses in other cases, past and future.

Heinz Eulau Award ($750)

For the best article published in the American Political Science Review during 2003.

Award Committee: Rachel Epstein, University of Denver, chair; Sanford F. Schram, Bryn Mawr College; and Stephen M. Walt, Harvard University.

Recipient: Mary Hawkesworth, Rutgers University

Paper: “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions.” (American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 4)

Citation: This year's Heinz Eulau Award Committee has selected Mary Hawkesworth's article, “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions,” as the best article published in the American Political Science Review in 2003. This article examines the process through which legislative practices in the 103rd and 104th Congresses marginalize female members of color and therewith un der mine this group's legislative interests and strategies. The committee was impressed by several features of Hawkesworth's study. She notably uses in-depth interview ing to highlight personal interactions operating in Congress that result in making race and gender sources of significant subject positions. These processes result in the structuring of hierarchies, the division of members into distinct groups predicated on racial and gender difference, and the construction of specific legislative agendas that stem directly from antagonistic social in ter ac tions. By addressing race and gender as processes, Hawkesworth's research is also suggestive of how identities more broadly are constituted through political conflict.

The committee also agreed on the political importance of “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender.” Through extensive use of interview material, the author forcefully conveys the personal experiences of female members of color as they confront condescension and prejudice on the part of their colleagues. At a time when formal access to American in sti tu tions, political and otherwise, is purportedly quite broad, this article shows how those same institutions threaten to perpetuate the marginalization of minority groups. A fresh look at race and gender dynamics in Congress promises to encourage creative thinking about how best to address problems of discrimination that are so graphically portrayed here.

This year's committee was also enthusiastic about two other articles that appeared in 2003. The first is Robert Pape's “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” vol. 97, no. 3, which rejects conventional explanations for suicide bombing that revolve around religious fanaticism or psychological attributes. Rather, Pape points out that the growing incidence of suicide bombing and the widening range of perpetrators point to a strategic logic in which organizations that sponsor suicide bombing strive to coerce states to make territorial concessions. The second is Kevin Narizny's “Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament,” vol. 97, no. 2. This article argues that leftist governments in three major Western democracies have been more likely than their right-leaning counterparts to resort to increased militarization in the face of external threats. Both of these studies address important questions in ways that convincingly challenge conventional wisdom.

Ralph Bunche Award

For the best scholarly work in political science, published in 2003, which explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism.

Award Committee: Michele Tracy Berger, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, chair; Katherine Tegtmeyer Pak, St. Olaf College; and Narendra Subramanian, McGill University.

Recipient: Robert O. Self, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Book: American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oklahoma (Princeton University Press).

Citation: Robert Self's American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland challenges our understanding of how racial segregation in housing and employment fit into the story of American racial politics. Self convincingly argues that the familiar twin tropes of “white flight” and the retreat of industrial sectors into the suburbs are incomplete explanations in understanding the ideological underpinnings of postwar metropolitan development. In a richly detailed narrative that examines politics within and between the municipalities of California's East Bay metropolitan region, he presents an alternative political, economic and social history.

The allure of life in an “industrial garden” attracted Americans of many ethnic backgrounds to Oakland, California in the economic upswing immediately after WWII; African Americans seemed on the cusp of realizing economic security along with recent European immigrants, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, and white Americans who came in search of the California dream. Real estate agents, developers, town political elites, and federal housing officials, however, gave segregation a new form by the way they approached marketing, granted housing loans and used the power of municipal government. Businesses and many union leaders collaborated to maintain racial barriers in employment.

Self details the rise of a distinctly white political identity based on low taxes; its effects at local, regional, state and federal levels; and African-American efforts to counter it with successive political strategies of moral campaigns, boycotts, state legislation, anti-colonial liberation movements, and local electoral politics.

His work deepens our understand ing of the civil rights movements of the 1960s, with its depiction of how community leaders, local politicians, and unions struggled against the de facto apartheid of peripheral industrial regions in the North. Moreover, he helps to bury the myth that the Civil Rights movement was solely a Southern manifestation. He reinterprets the national narrative of civil rights through his focus on Oakland. Self concentrates on the well-known Black Panthers organization but also sheds light on other important collectives that have received less attention than they deserve including the Oakland Black Caucus and the East Bay Democratic Club and their advancement of racial equality.

This work speaks substantively across many disciplines and fields including political science, African-American history, urban history, labor history, urban studies and economics. It forces new scholarly conversations on liberalism and the American welfare state, the representation of the 1960s in the national imagination, a revaluation of the governing dualisms in interpreting civil rights versus black power and the importance of local, regional and national frameworks to interpret the legacy of the post-1945 urban and suburban transformations.

Gladys M. Kammerer Award ($1,000)

For the best political science publication in 2003 in the field of U.S. national policy.

Award Committee: Victoria Hattam, New School University, chair; James Bjorkman, Institute of Social Studies; and David Baldwin, Columbia University.

Recipient: Gerry Mackie, University of Notre Dame

Book: Democracy Defended (Cam bridge University Press).

Recipient: Peter W. Singer, Brookings Institution

Book: Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell University Press).

Citations: Gerry Mackie's Democracy Defended is an ambitious book which considers the central question for U.S. national policy, namely the viability of democratic governance itself. Mackie sets his sights on Kenneth Arrow and William Riker in order to challenge their accounts of democratic instability. After an extensive theoretical engagement, Mackie contends that issues of cycling, strategic voting, and dimensional manipulation do not necessarily generate problems for democratic governance. Mackie drives home his critique through a detailed empirical analysis of the key policy issues of nineteenth-century American politics that have long been considered as leading to the outbreak of civil war. Throughout this substantial work, Mackie displays an unusual capacity to link theoretical critique with extensive empirical research that makes his challenge to contemporary theories of democratic politics especially compelling. This is a masterful book that will no doubt provoke much debate. Our understandings of democratic theory and practice will surely be enhanced from the arguments to follow.

Relevant for U.S. national policy and with implications for the international political order, Corporate Warriors systematically and cogently analyzes the process and the effects of how the privatization of security is challenging the state monopoly on coercion. The importance of the question, the depth of the research, the range of the evidence and the clarity of the exposition— all characterize this well conceptualized, theoretically grounded, clearly articulated disquisition that draws on classic literature, social science theory, modern management techniques, applied eco nom ics and moral philosophy.

Grounded in historical antecedents among the mercenaries of the Middle Ages and the ‘corporate enforcers’ of 19th century America, Peter Warren Singer's elegant account provides profound insights into contemporary and future governance. When affairs of state are out-sourced to private corporations, the accountability of agents lies beyond the control of public principals. The emergence of a private military industry raises political dilemmas that not only are theoretically compelling but also have empirically immediate policy relevance for democracy, human rights and national security. With consummate skill and dynamic analysis, Singer addresses key issues in contemporary American politics.

Victoria Schuck Award ($1,000)

For the best book published in 2003 on women and politics.

Award Committee: Amrita Basu, Amherst College, chair; Sylvia Bashevkin, University College, University of Toronto; and Alice M. Jackson, Morgan State University.

Recipient: Nancy J. Hirschmann, University of Pennsylvania

Book: The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom (Princeton University Press).

Citation: In her wonderfully titled book, The Subject of Liberty, Nancy Hirschmann asks what freedom means for women and how they can achieve it. To address these ambitious questions, she examines the work of an impressive range of political and feminist theorists. However, Hirschmann does not confine herself to a philosophical analysis but explores the nature of freedom in some of the most important and difficult contexts that feminists have confronted, namely battering, welfare and veiling.

When the subject of freedom is female, Hirschmann argues, freedom is not the universal concept it is thought to be. She takes as her point of departure Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty. She argues that a full account of freedom must include both negative liberty's emphasis on the necessity for individuals to decide what they want for themselves with positive liberty's emphasis on the provision of enabling conditions, including the material conditions for choice. In the case of women this entails an appreciation of the interaction and mutual constitution of the external structures of patriarchy and the inner selves of women. Thus women's act of choosing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for freedom.

Hirschmann's trenchant critique of the constraints that surround women's exercise of freedom provides the basis for her thoughtful reflections on how women can attain meaningful power in creating contexts in which they can formulate choices. She emphasizes the links between equality and freedom and the value of selective forms of state intervention. She calls for feminists' continual critical engagement with the very meaning of desire and choice. She supports a feminism which is deeply tolerant of women who make choices that may be antithetical to feminism, whether this is a battered woman who decides to return to an abusive partner or a veiled woman who defends the practice of veiling. Such tolerance for Hirschmann is founded on a compassionate recognition of oppression which constrains women's choices and on an openness and humility in appreciating the complex reasoning that surrounds the choices women make. It is a global vision that encourages challenging but respectful dialogue across many lines of difference. We are proud to honor a scholar with the energy, compassion and erudition of Nancy Hirschman.

Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award ($5,000)

For the best book published during 2003 on gov ern ment, politics, or in ter na tion al affairs.

Award Committee: Gerald M. Pomper, Rutgers University, chair; Jim Johnson, University of Rochester; Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, University of Utah

Recipient: Martha Finnemore, George Washington University

Book: The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About The Use of Force (Cornell University Press).

Citation: The committee has selected, Martha Finnemore's The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About The Use of Force, to receive the Woodrow Wilson Foundation award for 2003. In this book, Finnemore asks scholars to consider the implications of the changing understandings of the purposes of force that she carefully documents in three areas: use of military force to collect debts, military intervention in sovereign states for humanitarian goals, and military intervention to support international order. In the first area, she documents the key role played by legal professionals in changing elites' un der stand ings of the use of legitimate force. Because of these changes, the illegitimacy of military force to collect from debtor states is taken for granted in the contemporary period. In the second area, Finnemore shows how changing conceptions of who is human explain changes in state intervention—from the Greek War for Independence (1821–1827) to Kosovo. Finally, she documents and analyzes the four distinctive understandings of order from the 18th century to the current system and how those distinctive beliefs enable and constrain the use of military force.

What is most impressive about the book is that Finnemore never loses sight of why the empirical evidence matters. Through out the book she contrasts her more constructivist approach with realist and liberal approaches to IR, carefully noting when those approaches fail to explain the evidence. Her book is also a model not only of theoretical but methodological awareness. For example, she notes how her emphasis on the intertwining of perceptions of utility and legitimacy “would not have been uncovered by a purely deductive, hypothesis-testing exercise.” Indeed, she began her project in that very mode but switched when it could not explain the historical puzzles she encountered in her research.

This is a book that deserves to be read by political scientists in all fields, policy makers, and the attentive public. In jargon-free prose Finnemore uses the sweep of historical evidence to ask scholars to rethink pernicious dichotomies (e.g., the fact/value and inductive/deductive dichotomies) that have stymied research and to more deeply question taken-for-granted assumptions about the ways in which the world works. Finnemore's emphasis on the power of ideas is a welcome challenge to previous reliance on material factors and “national interest” and her conclusions on the use of force—and the limitations on its effectiveness—are highly relevant to any discussion of world affairs.

John Gaus Award ($2000)

The John Gaus Distinguished Lecturer Award honors the recipient's lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration and, more generally, recognizes and encourages scholarship in public administration.

Award Committee: Lloyd G. Nigro, Georgia State University, chair, Theodore Marmor, Yale University, and Norma Riccucci, Rutgers University.

Recipient: Patricia W. Ingraham, Syracuse University

Citation: The American Political Science Association confers the 2004 John Gaus Award on Patricia W. Ingraham in recognition of a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration. Distinguished Professor of Public Administration in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, she has published widely on fundamental questions concerning public service and democratic governance, including issues of performance, change and reform in public organizations and the policy-making role of the career civil service. Her scholarly works have also explored the issues and challenges of relationships between elected officials and career executives, and related questions about leadership in public agencies.

Her 25 year academic career has been notable for its sustained effort to better illuminate the nature of effectiveness and accountability in the administrative institutions of American democracy. She is the author or editor of 11 books and numerous articles, chapters and mono graphs that span a wide range of topics joining political science and public administration in this regard. The books include The Foundation of Merit: Public Service in American Democracy; Government Performance: Why Management Matters, and, most recently, The Art of Governance: Analyzing Management and Administration. This work consistently addresses practical problems of the public service and the ability to effectively deliver and manage public services, as well as the theoretical tensions between large bureaucratic organizations and democratic governance.

Among her many awards and distinctions are the American Society for Public Administration's Waldo, Mosher, and Levine Awards for research and career service, the Midwest Political Science Association's Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Career Contributions to the Study of Public Administration and Bureaucracy, and the APSA's Herbert Kaufman Award. She is the recipient of a Chancellor's Citation for Research Excellence from Syracuse University. In addition to her position as Distinguished Professor in the Maxwell School, she was the founding Director of the Alan K. Campbell Institute of Public Affairs. She was Director and Principal Investigator for The Government Performance Project, a multi-year analysis of the role and impact of effective management systems at all levels of government in the United States. Her commitment to teaching excellence is widely recognized by her colleagues and former students in public administration and political science.

Professor Ingraham has been the President of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and serves as Senior Research Advisor for the Partnership for Public Service in Washington. She has been a member of national advisory boards for many federal or ganizations, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Offices of Management and Budget and Personnel Management, and the General Accounting Office, as well as an advisor to several nations abroad. She has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Public Administration Review, Governance, the Journal of Politics, Public Management, and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. She is a member of APSA, ASPA, and the International Political Science Association.

Hubert H. Humphrey Award ($1,000)

Presented each year in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist.

Award committee: Joel S. Migdal, Chair, University of Washington; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, University of Pennsylvania; and Cornelius Kerwin, American University

Recipient: The Honorable David Dreier, Congressman from California

Citation: The Hubert Humphrey Award recognizes notable public service by a political scientist. This year's award recognizes an outstanding leader in Congress, the Honorable David Dreier. Representative Dreier is best known as the chair of the House Rules Committee and is closely associated with congressional reform. He is author of the historic 1995 congressional reform package. The changes streamlined committee staff by one-third, made Congress compliant with all anti-discrimination and workplace safety laws, promoted fiscal responsibility through the use of honest budget numbers, eliminated proxy voting in all House committees, created term-limits for committee chairman, and opened com mit tee meetings to the public and press. When he was chosen as chair of the House Rules Committee, he further reformed the House's rules, removing ancient terms and confusing cross references, consolidating 51 standing House rules into 28. His efforts at congressional reform have seem him named as one of the top “procedural entrepreneur[s] in the modern House of Representatives” by Scott Adler, author of Why Congressional Reforms Fail. Respected on both sides of the aisle, Dreier has opposed partisan attacks. Moreover, he has called on experts in the field, including a number of prominent political scientists to testify before the Rules Committee.

Described by Business Week as a “fierce free trader,” Dreier has been a national leader in developing trade policy. He has worked to open foreign markets to American goods and services and the United States to imports. He led the effort to extend Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China.

Congressman Dreier was born on July 5, 1952, in Kansas City, Missouri. Moving to California for college, he graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College in 1975, and earned a Master's degree in American Government from Claremont Graduate University the following year. From 1976 to 1978, Congressman Dreier served as Director of Corporate Relations for Claremont McKenna College. In May 2001, Dreier was unanimously selected by his California colleagues to chair the state's Republican Congressional Delegation. As chairman, he leads Congress' largest Republican delegation.

Dreier has supported education reforms designed to provide schools the flexibility to reduce class sizes and expand access to technology in the classroom. On technology, more generally, Dreier has been a leader in Congress. Business Week named him one of its “Digital Dozen” tech-savvy legislators in Congress, and AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association and America's largest high-tech trade association, inducted him into their “High Tech Legislator Hall of Fame.” In 1999, Dreier was awarded the “Cyber-Champion” title by the Business Software Alliance, and in 2000 he was named “High-Tech Legislator of the Year” by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC). He also won the “Founder's Award” by TechNet.

This year's Hubert H. Humphrey award recognizes the many achievements of a truly outstanding leader, who has worked to make Congress more efficient and responsive.

Carey McWilliams Award ($750)

Presented each year to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understand ing of politics.

Award Committee: Russell Hardin, New York University; Steve Sanders, Indiana University; and Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago.

Recipient: Bill Moyers, Public Affairs Television

Citation: Bill Moyers is among the best known and most widely followed of all political commentators over the past few decades. His television shows, interviews with major and lesser known figures, and his efforts to pull general themes together have graced our lives since his departure from partisan political activity in the period of Lyndon Johnson's presidency. He not only covers the most important issues of the day, he commonly brings novel perspectives to them and he makes them part of a coherent overall history of our age. For many Americans he has been among the most important sources of our knowledge and understanding of major social and political trends. We honor him with the 2004 Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science As sociation as he has honored us with his insights, his even-handedness, and his care for the issues of our time.

Ithiel de Sola Pool Award ($2,000)

Presented triennially to a scholar selected to explore the implications of research on issues of politics in a global society.

Award Committee: Suzanne Berger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chair; Sanjib Baruah, Bard College; and Jean Blondel, European University Institute Badia Fies.

Recipient: Manuel Castells, University of Southern California, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Citation: The scientific works of Manuel Castells, like those of Ithiel de Sola Pool, are bold and broad contributions to the most important debates of our times about how new technologies reshape the terrain of democratic politics. His research spans the fields of political sociology, urban studies, information technology, and social movements. Like Ithiel de Sola Pool, Manuel Castells has not only contributed to scholarship, but to public deliberation, as an advisor to governments and a member of major commissions in Spain, Russia, the United Nations, Chile, and the European Union. Castells is a public intellectual whose work has contributed to building a community of research on globalization and democracy—an intellectual community with neither disciplinary nor national borders.

Castells carried out his graduate studies in public law, political economy, and sociology in Spain and France. His books in the 1970s and 1980s focused mainly on urban problems and politics. Among them, the best known are The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach (1972), The City and the Grass Roots (1983), The City, Class and Power (1978) and The Informational City (1989). These are works that started from Marxist perspectives on political economy and broadened to accord greater significance to locality and to the autonomous force of political organization and action. A second stream of research in the 1980s focused on the impact of changes in the macroeconomy on class and social structure, and his book The Economic Crisis and American Society (1980) represents this body of work.

Most influential of Castells' contributions are the three volumes he wrote in the 1990s on globalization and its impact on society and politics: The Rise of the Network Society (1996), The Power of Identity (1997), and End of Millennium (1998). These works start from the revolutionary impact of new information and communication technologies on the structures of work, community, and nation. In the scholarly and public debates over globalization, Castells has made a clear and powerful case for the novelty and significance of the transformations at work in contemporary societies. One measure of the impact of this work is the fact that the books have already been translated into 20 languages!

The committee's selection honors a scholar whose extraordinary production has already been widely recognized. Castells has honorary doctorates from universities in Brazil, Spain, England, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, and Bolivia, and many of his books have been awarded prizes.