FRANK J. GOODNOW AWARD

The Frank Johnson Goodnow Award was established by the APSA Council in 1996 to honor service to the community of teachers, researchers, and public servants who work in the many fields of politics. Frank J. Goodnow, the first president of the American Political Science Association, a pioneer in the development of judicial politics, and former president of Johns Hopkins University, is an exemplar of the public service and volunteerism that this award represents.

Award Committee: Linda Fowler, Chair, Dartmouth College; Karen Hult, Virginia Tech; K. C. Morrison, University of Delaware

Recipient: John Ishiyama, University of North Texas

Citation: The Frank Johnson Goodnow Award honors service to the community of teachers, researchers, and public servants who work in the many fields of politics. Professor John T. Ishiyama, the Distinguished University Professor at Northern Texas University, is the 2018 recipient in recognition of his outstanding contributions to political science as an editor, teacher, mentor, and scholar.

With annual submissions to the American Political Science Review running at over 1100 papers per year, many scholars had the opportunity to appreciate Professor Ishiyama’s changes as head of a team of four editors from 2012–2016. He not only improved the timeliness of the review process, but also shaped the journal’s future course. During his tenure, he supported Data Access and Research Transparency to increase transparency and replicability in research methods and data collection, showing great skill in managing a contentious issue. Several of the scholars who nominated Professor Ishiyama observed that under his leadership the APSR became more representative of the wide-ranging questions that motivate our colleagues’ research.

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John Ishiyama, University of North Texas, left, receives the Frank J. Goodnow Award from Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair, right.

An outstanding teacher, Professor Ishiyama proved a powerful advocate for the art and science of teaching within the discipline of political science. Professor Ishiyama became a founding member of the coalition that pushed for the establishment of APSA’s annual teaching and learning conference and the eventual creation of a new journal, Journal of Political Science Education. Both venues provided space for practical exchange of ideas about what works in the classroom and fostered systematic inquiry into pedagogy in terms of theory, values and methods. A by-product of his efforts has been to make the Association feel more inclusive.

Professor Ishiyama has extended his collegial style to undergraduates through the Research Experience for Undergraduates in Conflict Management and Peace Science funded by the National Science Foundation. The program he directs at UNT is the only one of its kind and has been instrumental in stimulating students to pursue advanced study in political science.

The political, social and demographic changes in the United States have presented opportunities and challenges to the discipline of political science. Professor Ishiyama, with his commitment to scholarly inquiry, his devotion to pedagogical excellence and his generous spirit of service, has earned the thanks of his APSA colleagues many times over.

BARBARA SINCLAIR AWARD

This award commemorates the life and scholarship of renowned scholar of legislative politics Barbara Sinclair. Each year a speaker will be selected to deliver the ectur, held at American University. The inaugural Barbara Sinclair Lecture will take place in Fall 2018. Speaker selection recognizes achievement in promoting understanding of the US Congress and legislative politics. The lecture and speaker honorarium are co-sponsored by the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, School of Public Affairs, American University.

Award Committee: Jim Thurber, Chair, American University; Janna Deitz, Western Illinois University; Ron Elving, National Public Radio and American University; Greg Koger, Miami University; Cathy Rudder, George Mason University

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Sarah Binder, George Washington University, left, receives the Barbara Sinclair award from Pippa Norris, APSA Vice President, right.

Recipient: Sarah Binder, George Washington University

Citation: Professor Sarah A. Binder has been selected as the inaugural presenter of the Barbara Sinclair Lecture to the incoming class of American Political Science Association Congressional Fellows and friends of the Congressional Fellows Program in Fall 2018.

Professor Binder is a professor of political science at George Washington University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Much like Professor Sinclair, Professor Binder served as an APSA Congressional Fellow working in the office of Representative Lee Hamilton (D-IN). She has published countless articles and five books on the US Congress, winning the Richard F. Fenno Jr. prize for best book published on legislative politics in 2003. While Professor Binder’s scholarship is exceptionally impressive, the committee believes it is her advocacy for the study of Congress that makes her uniquely suited for this honor. Much like Professor Sinclair, Professor Binder has produced an enormous volume of engaging and important work on congressional politics. She also writes at least one, sometimes multiple articles per month for the Washington Post, most of which relate scholarship on congressional politics to current events. This work engages and explains the inner workings of the US Congress to the general public, which is important given the chamber’s unpopularity and dense and confusing institutional structures. Much like Professor Sinclair, Professor Binder’s substantive knowledge of Congress is widely respected by practitioners and scholars alike.

This lecture commemorates the life and scholarship of renowned scholar of legislative politics Barbara Sinclair. The inaugural Barbara Sinclair Lecture will take place in Fall 2018 at American University and is co-sponsored by the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, School of Public Affairs at American University and the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship Program.

DISTINGUISHED TEACHING AWARD

The APSA Distinguished Teaching Award honors the outstanding contribution to undergraduate and graduate teaching of political science at two- and four-year institutions. The contribution may span several years or an entire career, or it may be a single project of exceptional impact.

Award Committee: Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Chair, Pomona College; Chris Howell, Oberlin College; Tamara Metz, Reed College

Recipient: Timothy Johnson, University of Minnesota

Citation: We are delighted to present the 2018 APSA Distinguished Teaching Award to Dr. Timothy Johnson, Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Since his arrival at the University of Minnesota in 2000, Dr. Johnson has won every major award the University grants for teaching and advising. We are pleased to add the APSA Distinguished Teaching Award to this impressive list.

Dr. Johnson’s remarkable track record of teaching and mentoring undergraduates and graduate students at the University of Minnesota has also translated into research and coauthorship opportunities for his students. Dr. Johnson has secured almost $2 million in internal and external funding that has been used, in whole or in part, to support funding for undergraduate research, including three National Science Foundation grants. Even more impressive, Dr. Johnson has published a book and seventeen articles or book chapters with students or former students. As Dr. Johnson notes on his CV, this amounts to almost half of all of his scholarly publications. As one of his former students and academic collaborators noted in his letter, “I struggle to imagine someone who better illustrates that excellence in teaching and research are not mutually exclusive.”

His students, colleagues and recommenders praise Dr. Johnson as an exceptional and supportive mentor, and as a devoted, inspiring and impactful teacher. As one of his former Constitutional Law students wrote, “Professor Johnson didn’t just impart facts and dates… he built us a story. He constructed an adventure rich with history and nuance, sacrifice, and the struggle we’ve endured as a nation to build and maintain our country’s core values of freedom and justice.”

We are inspired by Dr. Johnson’s example and grateful for his commitment to shaping and developing the next generation of scholars, thinkers and citizens through his dedication to teaching and mentoring within the discipline of Political Science.

JOHN GAUS AWARD

The John Gaus Award and Lectureship 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: Kelly Leroux, Chair, University of Illinois, Chicago; Jill Nicholson-Crotty, Indiana University; Andrew Whitford, University of Georgia

Recipient: Norma Riccucci, Rutgers University

Citation: Professor Norma Riccucci is the Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University–Newark and delivered the 2018 John Gaus Lecture at the 2018 Annual Meeting.

Professor Riccucci has published extensively in the areas of public management, affirmative action, human resources, and public sector labor relations. Professor Riccucci’s work in the joint tradition of political science and public administration has resulted in a long list of high quality publications including: Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of Knowledge, which received the 2012 Best Book Award from the Research section of the American Society of Public Administration); How Management Matters: Street Level Bureaucrats and Welfare Reform which received the 2009 Best Book Award from the public administration section of the American Political Science Association; and Managing Diversity in Public Sector Workforces. Her book Unsung Heroes: Federal Execucrats Making a Difference, which captures and analyzes evidence of heroic behavior of high level career federal government service employees was listed as one of 20 “most influential books” in Public Administration. She is also coauthor of the leading public personnel textbook in the field of public administration.

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Norma Riccucci, Rutgers University, left, receives the John Gaus Award from Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair, right.

Professor Riccucci’s history of exemplary scholarship is also reflected in the numerous awards that she has received. In fact, in 2005 Professor Riccucci was inducted into the National Academy of Public Administration.

As one of her nominators states, “It is difficult to think of any other public administration–political science scholar who has contributed more to our understanding of affirmative action and diversity management in government employment than Professor Riccucci.”

HUBERT H. HUMPHREY AWARD

The Hubert H. Humphrey Award is awarded annually in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist. The award is intended to honor former Vice President Humphrey’s distinguished career and life of public service.

Award Committee: William Galston, Chair, The Brookings Institution; Peter Feaver, Duke University; Barbara Romzek, American University

Recipient: Condoleezza Rice, Former United States Secretary of State

Citation: We are pleased to announce that that Condoleezza Rice is the recipient of the 2018 Hubert H. Humphrey Award. Dr. Rice’s career exemplifies the contributions that political scientists can make to public as well as academic life.

Born in then-segregated Birmingham, Alabama in 1954, Rice received a B.A. in political science from the University of Denver, an M.A. in political science from Notre Dame University, and a PhD in political science from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies with a dissertation on military policy and politics in communist Czechoslovakia.

Dr. Rice began her academic career in 1981 as an assistant professor at Stanford University. Between 1989 and 1991, she served as director and then senior director of Soviet and East European Affairs on the National Security Council under National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft before returning to Stanford. Just two years later, she was appointed as the first female and African American provost in the university’s history, and the youngest as well.

In December 2000, Rice left Stanford to serve as National Security Advisor to newly elected president George W. Bush, a position she occupied from January 2001 until being confirmed as Secretary of State in January 2005. She left office in 2009 and returned to Stanford as a political science professor and senior fellow on public policy at the Hoover Institution.

Despite spending many years in government and academic administration, Rice somehow found time to write or edit eight books, most recently Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (2017) and, with Amy Zegart, Political Risk: How Businesses and Government Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (2018).

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Craig Silverman, Buzzfeed News, left, receives the Carey McWilliams Award from Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair, right.

CAREY MCWILLIAMS AWARD

The Carey McWilliams Award is given annually to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics. The winner should have a distinguished public service career in media and political science and should illumine certain key elements identified with McWilliams, which include intellectual forthrightness and political independence.

Award Committee: Erika Franklin Fowler, Chair, Wesleyan University; Bruce Bimber University of California, Santa Barbara; Stephen Saideman, Carleton University

Recipient: Craig Silverman, Buzzfeed News

Citation: Craig Silverman, Media Editor for Buzzfeed News, is the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Carey McWilliams Award Winner. As democracies wrestle with disinformation, Silverman’s reporting has been important in illuminating the issues at the crux of the crisis in journalism. His work not only highlights some of the most pressing issues in social and political science with respect to news and democracy but has also often helped set the agenda for researchers rather than the other way around. By integrating data analysis and investigative reporting, Silverman exemplifies journalism in this complex era at its best. Further, in publicly articulating concerns over the role he played in popularizing the term “fake news,” he also displays the intellectual forthrightness central to a McWilliams recipient.

RALPH J. BUNCHE AWARD

The Ralph Bunche Award is given annually for the best scholarly work(s) in political science that explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism.

Award Committee: Antje Ellermann, Chair, Institute for European Studies; Erin Chung, Johns Hopkins University; Sophia Jordan Wallace, University of Washington, Seattle

Recipients: Juliet Hooker, Brown University; Chris Zepeda-Millán, University of California, Los Angeles

Citation: The winners of the Ralph Bunche Award are two outstanding and field-defining books, Juliet Hooker’s Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos (Oxford University Press) and Chris Zepeda-Millán’s Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism (Cambridge University Press).

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Chris Zepeda-Millan, University of California, Los Angeles, left, and Juliet Hooker, Brown University, center, are presented the Ralph J. Bunche Award by award committee chair Antje Ellermann.

Juliet Hooker’s beautifully written, theoretically rich, and methodologically innovative book examines some of the most important thinkers on race in the Americas. She makes a strong case for what she calls “hemispheric juxtaposition” through a painstaking, nuanced comparison of the works of Frederick Douglass and Domingo F. Sarmiento and W.E.B. Du Bois and José Vasconcelos, whose works are tied together through their responses to scientific discourses about race and their “dialogically formed racial discourses and political projects” conceived in relation to the “other” America. The book redefines “American Studies” and has far-reaching implications not only for how we might read Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos, but also for our understanding of how ideas about race, imperialism, and liberation travel across time and space. This groundbreaking work will further shape debates on the epistemological foundations of comparative political theory and set the benchmark for transnational studies of race.

Chris Zepeda-Millán’s study of the 2006 immigrant rights protest wave in the US is a lucid, theoretically rich, and sweeping (yet succinct) study that will undoubtedly become one of the foundational works for the study of Latino politics. The book asks where, how, and why these mass mobilizations occurred, as well as what were their effects. This groundbreaking book stood out to the entire committee for the depth of original data collection, its ability to simultaneously bridge and make original contributions to the fields of racial politics, immigration, and social movements, and its nuanced conceptualization of various types of threats and the racialization of Latino identities. Zepeda-Millán provides strong evidence that despite the fact that Latinos are often characterized as a “sleeping giant,” they are actually extremely politically active and often work together to resist anti-Latino and anti-immigrant policies using both electoral politics and political activism.

GLADYS M. KAMMERER AWARD

The Gladys M. Kammerer Award is given annually for the best book published during the previous calendar year in the field of US national policy.

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Sarah Binder, George Washington University, left, and Mark Spindel, Potomac River Capital LLC, center right, are presented the Gladys M. Kammerer Award by Henry Farrell and Pippa Norris.

Award Committee: Daniel Tichenor, Chair, University of Oregon; Corrine McConnaughy, George Washington University; David Robertson, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Recipients: Sarah Binder, George Washington University; Mark Spindel, Potomac River Capital LLC

Citation: In The Myth of Independence, Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel have crafted a foundational work for understanding the history and politics of the Federal Reserve, one that unveils the compelling tensions between economics and politics and between independence and public accountability. They skillfully illuminate how and why members of Congress have paid attention to the Federal Reserve, and to what extent they have shaped its architecture and behavior. The heartbeat of American prosperity depends on the Fed, but does it reflect the will of the American people in any way? Binder and Spindel demonstrate that Congress has much more influence over the often inscrutable Fed than conventional wisdom allows. Employing a rich set of methodological tools ranging from archival research to data analysis of congressional voting, the authors demonstrate the connections between legislative efforts to regulate the Fed’s discretion and transparency and the performance of the nation’s economy. Beautifully written, this book ultimately captures the extent to which the Fed and Congress are interdependent institutions. Few authors could make such a complex subject so compelling, accessible, and engaging.

THEODORE J. LOWI AWARD

The Theodore J. Lowi Award recognizes the best first book in any field of political science, showing promise of having a substantive impact on the overall discipline, regardless of method, specific focus of inquiry or approach to subject.

Award Committee: Carlo Guarnieri, Chair, Università di Bologna; Suzanne Mettler, Cornell University; David Vogel, University of California, Berkeley

Recipient: Margaret Peters, University of California, Los Angeles

Citation: The Award Committee was unanimous in its decision to award the Theodore J. Lowi ‘First Book Award’ for 2018 to Margaret Peters. Dr. Peters is an assistant professor in the Department of political science at UCLA. Her research focuses broadly on international political economy with a special focus on the politics of migration. Prior to coming to UCLA, she was an assistant professor in the Political Science department at Yale University and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She earned her PhD from Stanford University in 2011. Her work has appeared in International Organization and World Politics, among others.

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Margaret Peters, University of California, Los Angeles, center, receives the Theodore J. Lowi Award from Kathleen Thelen, APSA President, left and Rodney Hero, University of California, Berkeley.

Her first book, Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization (2017, Princeton University Press) examines the relationship between trade policy, outsourcing, and immigration policy, demonstrating the important and influential role played by international trade and capital movements in shaping public policies toward immigration. An exhaustively researched and original analysis, with broad international policy implications, Trading Barriers illuminates our understanding of the relationship between trade liberalization and immigration policies.

VICTORIA SCHUCK AWARD

The Victoria Schuck Award is given annually for the best book published on women and politics. Established to honor Victoria Schuck’s life-long commitment to women and politics, this prize recognizes and encourage research and publication in this field. Schuck earned her PhD in 1937 from Stanford University and played a leading role in opening doors for women in the profession. She was not only an outstanding mentor for women, but her service in senior administrative roles at Mt Holyoke College and Mount Vernon College opened doors for future generations of women leaders.

Award Committee: Mona Krook, Chair, Rutgers University; Amrita Basu, Amherst College; Farida Jalalzai, Oklahoma State University

Recipient: Kara Ellerby, University of Delaware

Citation: Kara Ellerby’s book, No Shortcut to Change: The Unlikely Path to a More Gender Equitable World (published in 2017 by New York University), is the recipient of the 2018 APSA Victoria Schuck Award for the Best Book on Women in Politics. Skillfully integrating feminist theory with literature on gender and international political economic and international security, Ellerby provides an original and theoretically robust interpretation of the use of ‘gender’ as a shortcut in policy reforms promoted at both the state and global levels. The book provides a much needed and powerful corrective to prevailing assumptions in both research and practitioner work to promote gender equality around the globe. Rather than ‘add women and stir,’ Ellerby argues in favor of engaging in more substantial critiques about hierarchies, as suggested by the ‘gender’ concept. The book will no doubt have a major impact both inside and outside of academia.

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Kara Ellerby, University of Delaware, left, receives the Victoria Schuck Award from Pippa Norris, APSA Vice President.

WOODROW WILSON FOUNDATION AWARD

The Woodrow Wilson Award is given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs. The award, formerly supported by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, is sponsored by Princeton University.

Award Committee: Allison Stanger, Chair, New America; Ester Fuchs, Columbia University; Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Whitman College

Recipient: Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University

Citation: At a time when democracies are under threat across the globe, Daniel Ziblatt’s reconsideration of the factors underlying democratization and democratic breakdown in Europe makes an important contribution to both the discipline of political science and our understanding of the world. Contrary to both conventional wisdom and previous scholarship, Ziblatt shows that the nature of conservative party organization has an important role to play in comparative democratic stability, one that has, to date, been underappreciated. In reducing the perceived threat of an expanded franchise to the existing socioeconomic elite, conservative parties that are both inclusive and centralized can fortify liberal democracy in surprising ways. Ziblatt’s dazzling erudition and exhaustive research deploys whatever methods shed light on his central questions. His willingness to follow the evidence where it leads, even if it takes him to unexpected places, is a model for scholarly political inquiry in polarized times. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy illuminates the sources of democratic breakdown in Europe, while generating portable insights that might inform future research on regimes beyond Europe’s borders. The Woodrow Wilson Award Committee unanimously sees Ziblatt’s book as one likely to be read for many years to come.

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Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University, right, receives the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award from award committee chair Allison Stanger.

GABRIEL ALMOND AWARD

The Gabriel A. Almond Award is given annually for the best dissertation in the field of comparative politics. The award was created in recognition of Gabriel Almond’s contributions to the discipline, profession, and Association. Almond’s scholarly work contributed directly to the development of theory in comparative politics and brought together work on the developing areas and Western Europe that prevented splintering into an array of disparate areas studies.

Award Committee: Fotini Christia, Chair, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ernesto Calvo, University of Maryland, College Park; Jane Gingrich, Magdalen College, Oxford

Recipient: David Szakonyi, Columbia University

Citation: The committee for the Gabriel A. Almond Award for Best Dissertation in Comparative Politics unanimously selected David Szakonyi’s work entitled “Renting Elected Office: Why Businesspeople Become Politicians in Russia.”

This is extraordinary work that tackles an important question of why, when and how big business may choose to participate in politics directly through running for office, rather than through lobbying and surrogates. David provides well-substantiated evidence that accounts for the decision to run for office, the decision to compete through particular types of electoral rules, as well as the returns from office to both the candidate and the industry. He finds that both greater oligopolistic competition and weaker political parties incentivize businessmen to run and that firms with directors holding elected office greatly benefit from such political connections, because connected firms improve their performance by gaining access to bureaucrats and reducing information costs, and not by signaling legitimacy to financiers.

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David Szakonyl, Columbia University, left, receives the Gabriel Almond Award from Henry Farrell.

David’s dissertation is not only well motivated and convincingly theorized, but also exhibits great creativity and sensitivity to measurement as well as to causal identification. It has a very clear sense on how to address generality and external validity both in a more micro-way within Russia through looking at politics at the city level, and in a more macro-way outside Russia, by looking at the case of Brazil, India and the US. Beyond its impressive research design and innovative data collection, this is also work that sets a rich research agenda for future scholars. It is bound to make a lasting contribution to the field and is well on its way to becoming a great book.

WILLIAM ANDERSON AWARD

The William Anderson Award is given annually for the best dissertation in the general field of federalism or intergovernmental relations and state and local politics. The award was set up in honor of William Anderson, former APSA president, who was a leading American authority in the areas of local government, public administration, intergovernmental relations and the history of political science. He did much to shape teaching and research in these fields not only at his own university, but throughout the country.

Award Committee: Jenna Bednar, Chair, University of Michigan; Jörg Broschek, Wilfrid Laurier University; Kent Eaton, University of California, Santa Cruz

Recipient: Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer, Cornell University

Citation: In States Divided, Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer takes on an especially critical and challenging question in the study of territorial politics. Why in so many countries is the state much stronger and more capable in some parts of the territory than in others? In recent years, most of the attention focused on uncovering the sources of cross-national variation in the overall strength of the state. What is largely missing are studies that provide convincing accounts of how and why states are characterized internally by such different levels of strength and types of capacity within the same country and across the territory that they govern.

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Mariano Sanchez-Talanquer, Cornell University, left, receives the William Anderson Award from Pippa Norris, APSA Vice President.

Mariano reminds us that the “construction of states is carried out by political actors involved in political battles, and for political purposes,” and convincingly shows how attention to partisan conflict can unravel the puzzle of the state’s territorially uneven development. In Mexico, for example, he demonstrates how post-revolutionary governments heavily delegated security roles to rural militias in those parts of the territory where they were challenged by anti-revolutionary catholic forces, “a strategy that had fateful consequences for state capacity in the long run, as it stunted the development of civilian security and justice institutions at the local level.” In Colombia, Mariano shows that the Liberal party beginning in the 1930s disproportionately invested in the state’s fiscal capacity in those areas that it dominated politically, whereas the Conservative party during the period of its political hegemony was able to design education policy and literacy requirements in ways that simultaneously reinforced the Church’s role in education and disadvantaged Liberal municipalities.

Mariano’s use of both historical analysis and statistical methods provides an unusually strong empirical foundation for his theoretical claims about the impact of political cleavages, both partisan and religious, on the territorial quality of the state.

The committee congratulates Mariano on a dissertation that shows real intellectual ambition and sophistication as well as first-rate archival skills and the kind of persistence and dedication that is necessary to create original data sets in data-poor environments.

EDWARD S. CORWIN AWARD

The Edward S. Corwin Award is given annually for the best dissertation in the field of public law. The Corwin award is for the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted during that year or the previous year in the field of public law, broadly defined to include the judicial process, judicial behavior, judicial biography, courts, law, legal systems, the American constitutional system, civil liberties, or any other substantial area, or any work which deals in a significant fashion with a topic related to or having substantial impact on the American Constitution.

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Abigail Matthews, University of Iowa, left, recieves the Edward S. Corwin Award from Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair.

Award Committee: Jeb Barnes, Chair, University of Southern California; Rebecca Gill, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Eve Ringsmuth, Oklahoma State University

Recipient: Abigail Matthews, University of Iowa

Citation: Abigail Matthews’ dissertation, “Connected Courts: The Diffusion of Precedent across State Supreme Courts,” begins with an interesting puzzle: state supreme courts are autonomous institutions yet routinely rely on each other to justify their decisions. Matthews addresses these issues with originality and rigor, drawing heavily on network theory and methods (especially temporal exponential random graph network analysis) that allow her to map judicial discourse among state courts. Her findings advance our thinking on several fronts. As a general matter, she shows that state supreme courts have become more connected over time yet there is no evidence that any single court has emerged as a leader. Relatedly, state supreme courts do not simply cite other courts that look like them. Taken together, these findings, Matthews contends, show that courts are not just emulating each other but learning from one another, as judges seek answers from other courts when grappling with novel issues.

This work serves as a powerful reminder that law is more than a set of prescriptive rules. It entails discourse shared across institutional boundaries among professional networks that seek to learn from each other, even when grappling with cases of first impression.

HAROLD D. LASSWELL AWARD

The Harold D. Lasswell Award is given annually for the best dissertation in the field of public policy.

Award Committee: Jacob Hacker, Chair, Yale University; William Gormley, Georgetown University; Jennifer Kavanagh, RAND Corporation

Recipient: Jonathan Mummolo, Princeton University

Citation: “Modern Police Tactics, Police-Citizen Interactions, and the Prospects for Reform” is a highly original dissertation that advances our understanding of criminal justice policy while also challenging the conventional wisdom about bureaucratic politics. Jonathan Mummolo links public opinion, political behavior, public administration, and public policy analysis in a fresh and compelling fashion. Mummolo uses multiple methods to better understand police behavior, including content analysis, survey research, multivariate analysis, and personal interviews. He creates innovative new datasets from scratch, gathers previously untapped data through Freedom of Information Act searches, and uses rigorous statistical methods to identify both intended and unintended effects of local police decisions. Throughout, Mummolo identifies conceptual and empirical problems with our traditional understanding of how street-level bureaucrats work. Local police departments that invest in militarized equipment and that highlight these investments run the risk of losing public support for their work. A local police department that deliberately seeks to change ’stop and frisk’ practices by police officers can produce sudden and salutary shifts in police behavior. These and other novel and important findings contribute substantially to our understanding of the relationship between police policies and public opinion, as well as the relationship between police officers and their superiors. Overall, this is a truly outstanding dissertation on a topic that is particularly vital at this moment in our nation’s public life.

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Jonathan Mummolo, Princeton University, left, receives the Harold D. Lasswell Award from Pippa Norris, APSA Vice President.

E.E. SCHATTSCHNEIDER AWARD

The E.E. Schattschneider Award is given annually for the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted during that year or the previous year in the field of American government. This award was set up in honor of Elmer Eric Schattschneider, a former APSA president, and widely published and respected political scientist.

Award Committee: Mark Peterson, Chair, University of California, Los Angeles; Susan Haire, University of Georgia; Vesla Weaver, Johns Hopkins University

Recipient: Benjamin Toff, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Citation: The best research in political science both invigorates the scholarly understanding of politics and yields invaluable insights — accessible to academic and broader audiences alike — into matters of central concern to the polity. Such an achievement often escapes even the most distinguished scholars of long careers. Benjamin Toff, in his dissertation, “The Blind Scorekeepers,” has already met that mark.

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Benjamin Toff, University of Wisconsin–Madison, left, receives the E. E. Schattschneider Award from award committee chair Mark Peterson.

Toff offers a riveting analysis of two intersecting and dramatically transforming “industries” that play symbiotic high-profile roles in American politics—the news media and public opinion polling. Joining his insider perspective gained from an earlier post at the New York Times with an array of analytical tools reflecting his advanced training in political science; employing the triangulation of penetrating informant interviews with scores of editors, reporters, commentators, analysts, pollsters, and consultants with original and methodical large-scale data collection, multivariate analysis of surveys and news stories, and social-cueing experiments; and crafting unusually artful and pristine prose, Toff has produced a comprehensive, informative, rich, nuanced, and troubling window into two complex institutions that are thought to be pillars of democracy. It is far more than a study of political communications.

Americans depend on media, polling, and the reporting on opinion surveys to inform them about issues, candidates, and the working of government. Toff shows that the confluence of news media and public opinion polling reinforces partisan scorekeeping rather than nurturing the kind of “responsible electorate” once applauded by V. O. Key due to the emergence of resource constraints, incentives that drive reporting practices, the increasingly challenging environment for conducting representative surveys, and the psychological dynamics of opinion formation and rigidity.

KENNETH SHERRILL PRIZE AWARD

Through APSA’s Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, the Kenneth Sherrill Prize Award recognizes the best doctoral dissertation proposal for an empirical study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) topics in political science. The purpose of this prize is to encourage and enable empirical work on LGBT topics by graduate students, and to broaden the recognition of this work within political science.

Award Committee: Patrick Egan, Chair, New York University, Jyl Josephson, Rutgers University, Newark; Andrew S. Reynolds, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Recipient: Anna L. Weissman, University of Florida

Citation: By unanimous agreement, the committee for this year’s Kenneth Sherrill Prize for best dissertation proposal in the empirical study of LGBT politics enthusiastically awards the Prize to Anna L. Weissman (University of Florida) for her proposal entitled “LGBT Tolerance and the Focus on Non-Normative Parenting: Same-Sex Marriage vs. Same-Sex Parenting.” Anna’s dissertation will take a comparative, mixed-methods approach to better understand why support for marriage rights for same-sex couples is greater than support for parenting rights for LGBT people around the world. Her hypothesis is that even as LGBT rights advance, traditional and patriarchal notions of reproduction persist, creating the growing gap between acceptance of marriage and support for LGBT families. Anna plans comparative studies of France, Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic, chosen for their variation with regard to laws and religiosity. Her methodology will include historical process tracing, discourse analysis, and analysis of public opinion data in all four countries.

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Anna L. Weissman, University of Florida, left, receives the Kenneth Sherrill Prize Award from Kathleen Thelen, APSA President.

LEO STRAUSS AWARD

The Leo Strauss Award is given annually for the best dissertation in the field of political philosophy. The Fund was developed by former students of Strauss’ who sought to recognize his extraordinary influence on generations of students and his contributions to the field of political philosophy. He was a major figure in the department of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1949 to 1967.

Award Committee: Mary Dietz, Chair, Northwestern University; Andrew Valls, Oregon State University; David Lay Williams, DePaul University

Recipient: Tae-Yeoun Keum, Harvard University

Citation: A notoriously grisly twentieth century murder with no readily identifiable culprit and botched forensic evidence, all yielding to seductive juridical prosecutorial narratives built upon tacitly familiar popular fabulist frames. These are the figurations that open Tae-Yeoun Keum’s elegantly written, adroitly constructed, and fully realized investigation of Plato and the meaning, significance, and viability of myths and mythology in political theory and modernity.

Working meticulously across a dazzling array of foundational and secondary and historical and contemporary sources, Keum first crafts an interpretation of Plato that not only complicates the relation between the myths and allegories deployed in the Republic but also entangles the Platonic philosophy of reason with the Platonic rhetoric of mythmaking, thoroughly disrupting the conventional hierarchical opposition between these two modes of understanding. From an interpretive perspective informed by classical reception studies she then proceeds to identify a diversified yet discernible tradition of early and late modern European political thinkers – from Bacon, More, Leibniz, Bayle, and Fontenelle to Schlegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Schiller, Cassirer, and Popper – each of whom she illuminates as both indebted to (and struggling with) Plato’s “mythic legacy” and as self-consciously endeavoring to construct new and experimental genres of “philosophical myth,” where mythology operates as a medium of theoretical interest in the service of particular political purposes.

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Tae-Yeoun Keum, Harvard University, left, receives the Leo Strauss Award from Pippa Norris, APSA Vice President.

As a work of scholarship in the history of political theory, Keum’s “mythic tradition” thesis maintains an admirable balance between its evidently bold commitment to a grand and sweeping narrative on the one hand and its demonstrable fidelity to the historical, intellectual, and literary contexts of its particular authors and texts on the other. As a work of significance for contemporary political theory, her innovative study generates new possibilities for thinking about how the “genre of myth,” if opened to appreciation, can be grasped as a peculiar kind of power that might well reveal to us aspects, assumptions, and expressions of the human condition otherwise occluded in modernity.

MERZE TATE AWARD

The Merze Tate Award (formerly the Helen Dwight Reid Award) is given annually for the best dissertation successfully defended during the previous two years in the field of international relations, law, and politics.

Award Committee: Ido Oren, Chair, University of Florida; K. Orfeo Fioretos, Temple University; Stacie Goddard, Wellesley College

Recipient: Christoph Mikulaschek, Princeton University

Citation: Christoph Mikulaschek’s excellent dissertation “The Power of the Weak: How Informal Power-Sharing Shapes the Work of the United Nations Security Council” taps into important questions in international relations theory. To what extent can minor states constrain great powers? Do institutional norms and rules matter in shaping state behavior? The dissertation cuts innovatively into these broad questions by calling our attention to the divergence between formal rules and informal practices at the UN Security Council. Whereas the formal rules favor the great powers and require only narrow majorities to pass UNSC resolutions, in practice the great powers often pursue unanimity, particularly when seeking approval for controversial and resource-intensive interventions. This and other informal power-sharing practices enable minor powers to exert more influence on UNSC decisions than they could if the formal rules and/or the balance of material power between member states determined the outcome. Why do great powers make significant concessions to secure the formally-unneeded votes of weaker states? Mikulaschek insightfully explains that they do so because unanimity provides states with a strong signal they can use domestically to mobilize resources for implementing the UNSC’s policy. To support his argument, Mikulaschek combines sophisticated quantitative analyses with rich qualitative accounts that betray intimate familiarity with the inner workings of the Council. The dissertation is meticulously-researched and extremely well-written. It makes a significant original contribution to the study of international organizations and, more broadly, the dynamics of power in world politics.

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Christoph Mikulaschek, Princeton University, left, receives the Merze Tate Award from Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair.

LEONARD D. WHITE AWARD

The Leonard D. White prize is awarded annually for the best dissertation successfully defended during the previous two years in the field of public administration.

Award Committee: Steven Maynard-Moody, Chair, University of Kansas; Lotte Andersen, University of Aarhus; Christine Roch, Georgia State University

Recipient: Jennifer Mei Jun Yim, University of Utah

Citation: The 2018 Leonard D. White Award Committee is pleased to announce the selection of Jennifer Mei Jun Yim’s dissertation, “Delinquency’s Treatment: Why Interactions Produce Policy and Identity in Secure Juvenile Facilities,” as the recipient of this year’s award. In our era of mass incarceration and carceral citizenship, the treatment of juvenile offenders is at the heart of policy and governing. As Yim observes, most studies have focused on larger statistical trends, especially recidivism and costs. Her research examines the everyday interactions of incarcerated juveniles and staff in secure care facilities. For her dissertation, Yim engaged in extensive fieldwork and interviewed several types of staff and juveniles both living in and transitioning out of the secure “cottages” that were sites for her field observation. She also examined resident autobiographies and cottage policy documents. These original data provide the empirical foundation for Yim’s insights into both theory and practice.

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Jennifer Mei Jun Yim, University of Utah, left, is presented the Leonard D. White Award by award committee chair Steven Maynard-Moody.

“Delinquency’s Treatment” provides a compelling account of the lived experience and meaning of juvenile justice. Reading it in full is the only way to appreciate the power and nuance of this dissertation. “Delinquency’s Treatment” contributes a deeper understanding of how policy and practice shape—for better and worse—the identities of both clients: here, troubled youth and frontline workers. Yim also suggests changes so that policy better reflects practical experience. This is an important, insightful, and mature work.

FRANKLIN L. BURDETTE/PI SIGMA ALPHA AWARD

The Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award is given annually for the best paper presented at the previous year’s annual meeting. The award is supported by Pi Sigma Alpha.

Award Committee: Julia Lynch, Chair, University of Pennsylvania; Frank Schimmelfennig, ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Patricia Strach, SUNY, University of Albany

Recipient: Ana Catalano Weeks, University of Bath

Citation: We are pleased to award “Why Are Gender Quota Laws Adopted by Men? The Role of Inter-and Intra-Party Competition,” by Ana Catalano Weeks, as winner of the 2018 Burdette Prize. The prize committee recognizes Weeks’ paper for breaking new ground both theoretically and empirically, and for taking full advantage of the insights generated by previous generations of scholarship on political parties. Weeks’ paper focuses on a puzzle that is of compelling concern for the public and policymakers: Under what conditions are male party leaders willing to relinquish control over representation and implement gender quotas for candidates? The paper uncovers two mechanisms that go beyond existing explanations based on beliefs, diffusion, or social movements, and instead highlights the strategic use of quota politics as tools of intraparty and interparty competition. The paper’s research design and methods are exemplary, in particularly the careful selection of paired comparative case studies and the rigorous selection and documentation of interview subjects.

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Ana Catalano Weeks, University of Bath, left, is presented the Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award by Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair.

ROBERT A. DAHL AWARD

The Robert A. Dahl Award recognizes an untenured scholar(s) who produced scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy, including books, papers, and articles.

Award Committee: John Seery, Chair, Pomona College; Lucan Way, University of Toronto; Margaret Weir, Brown University

Recipients: Paul D. Kenny, Australian National University; K. Sabeel Rahman, Brooklyn Law School

Citation: Given the widespread concerns about the fate of democracy across the globe, we believe that a dual award is warranted. Two of the submissions make contributions to the subject of democracy that are not only exceptional, but uniquely exceptional, in very different ways. The first is Populism and Patronage: Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond by Paul D. Kenny. The second is Democracy Against Domination by K. Sabeel Rahman.

Kenny’s book makes major contributions to our knowledge of populism and democracy, proposing an original institutionally-anchored theory about how populism emerges in patronage-oriented regimes. It demonstrates this argument using a range of archival evidence focused on India and Asia. It then tests the theory with quantitative evidence from 92 countries. Throughout, Kenny’s book is attentive to the dangers that populism poses for democracy.

Rahman’s book offers powerful insights into the challenges that economic governance and the modern regulatory state present to American democracy. Weaving together arguments from democratic theory, legal analysis, and research on American political development, Rahman probes why American institutions have proven unable to respond to growing inequality and declining trust in government. The book develops innovative normative arguments about the forms of bottom up economic governance and institutional design needed to revitalize the American democracy.

The two books offer superbly-researched analyses of the different challenges that confront contemporary democracies. Kenny’s work provides a new analytic approach to understanding populism—and the dangers it poses to democracy—in patronage democracies. Rahman offers a deeply-grounded blend of institutional, normative, and prescriptive analysis that directs our attention to how American democracy can be revitalized.

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K. Sabeel Rahman, Brooklyn Law School, left, is presented the Robert A. Dahl Award by Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair. Not present: Paul D. Kenny.

HEINZ EULAU AWARD: AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW

The Heinz Eulau Award is given annually for the best article published in the American Political Science Review in the past calendar year. The award is supported by Cambridge University Press.

Award Committee: Giovanni Capoccia, Chair, University of Oxford; Tariq Thachil, Vanderbilt University; Jessica Weeks, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Recipients: Matthew T. Pietryka, Florida State University; Donald A. DeBats, Flinders University

Citation: Pietryka and DeBats’s article leverages the as-yet unmined historical data to analyze the impact of individuals’ social networks on their likelihood to vote and on their partisan choices. The authors reconstruct voters’ social proximity to elites in 19th-century statewide and municipal elections in Virginia and Kentucky by pairing newly discovered records of viva voce voting in those elections with archival data from public sources and church memberships, and show that individuals that are more socially proximate to elites are more likely to turn out to vote, and individuals that are more socially proximate to a given political party’s elites are more likely to vote for that party. Pietryka and DeBats’ strategy of analysis allows them to evaluate the network effects on a much broader set of connections than the few most immediate social connections of each individual. The authors also distinguish between the effect on voting participation of individuals who are centrally placed in the network and the effect of social proximity to elites. The former effect is not unequivocally positive and depends on the voting behavior of those central individuals: it is positive if they vote, but negative if they don’t. By contrast, social proximity of individuals to elites consistently encourages voting, by giving individuals more access to political information, reducing their cost of voting, strengthening their sense of political efficacy and putting social pressures on them to vote. Pietryka and DeBats’ analysis of historical datasets bear out their general hypothesis, which is also supported by the analysis of a contemporary dataset on municipal elections in Williamsburg, VA. The article by Pietryka and DeBats constituted an impressive piece of scholarly research, and a worthy winner of the 2018 Eulau Award.

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Donald A. DeBats, Flinders Unversity, left, and Matthew T. Pietryka, Florida State University, center right, are presented the Heinz Eulau Award for their contribution to APSR by Pippa Norris and Henry Farrell.

HEINZ EULAU AWARD: PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS

The Heinz Eulau Award is given annually for the best article published in Perspectives on Politics in the past calendar year. The award is supported by Cambridge University Press.

Award Committee: Giovanni Capoccia, Chair, University of Oxford; Janet Johnson, CUNY, Brooklyn College; Jan Toerell, Lund University

Recipients: Katherine J. Cramer, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Benjamin Toff, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Citation: The Committee for the Heinz Eulau Award for the Best Article published in Perspectives on Politics during 2017 confers the award to the article “The Fact of Experience: Rethinking Political Knowledge and Civic Competence”, by Katherine J. Cramer and Benjamin Toff.

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Benjamin Toff, University of Wisconsin–Madison, left, is presented the Heinz Elau Award for his contribution to Perspectives by Henry Farrell, APSA Program Committee Cochair. Not present: Katherine J. Cramer.

Perhaps the biggest puzzle of contemporary politics is why large numbers of citizens vote for candidates or policies that are likely to be detrimental to their own personal and economic interests. The electoral coalitions that led to the victory of Donald Trump in the US and to Brexit in the UK are probably the best-known examples of this puzzle. Cramer and Toff argue that explanations that focus on citizens’ inadequate information or on the predominance of identitarian issues are not fully persuasive. They propose an “Expanded Model of Civic Competence” in which the personal experience of individual citizens constitutes the decisive factor in how citizens filter, interpret, and evaluate political information. To demonstrate the importance of personal experience on how citizens make sense of politics, the authors draw on three different ethnographies. Cramer and Toff also make clear the normative implications of their analysis, in favor of the ideals and the practice of inclusive democratic politics. The Committee felt that their piece offers an original point of entry into the systematic study of democratic participation and individual attitudes towards political systems, which can be fruitfully developed and incorporated by scholars working in other traditions of analysis.■