Category Archives: Uncategorized

2023 Religion and Politics Small Grant Recipients

Congratulations to the 2023 Religion and Politics Small Grant recipients! 

  • Khasan Redjaboev (PhD candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Marika Olijar (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Khabibakhon Ubaydullaeva (History and Economics Research Group): The Effect of Religious Institutions on Gender Attitudes
  • Danissa Contreras Guzman (PhD student, University of Texas-Austin): Why the Left Uses Religion as a Political Strategy
  • James Kirk (PhD candidate, Notre Dame): Which Shepherds to Follow? Cross-Pressured Catholic Politics in a Polarized America
  • Brooklyn Walker (Asst. Prof, Hutchinson Community College): Scarcity, Abundance, and Enemies among American Christians

2024 Call for Award Nominations

Hubert Morken Award 

The Hubert Morken Award is given for the best book dealing with religion and politics published within the previous year. The criteria for the award include the originality of the argument presented, quality of the research, innovative methods, readability of the text and the policy or practical implications of the scholarship. To be eligible for the award, books must have been published in 2023. Nomination deadline: April 1, 2024. [For more information, go to 2024 Hubert Morken Best Book Award—Call for Nominations]

 

Award Committee:

 

 

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph Outstanding Scholar Award 

The Susanne Hoeber Rudolph Outstanding Scholar Award recognizes a scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the field of religion and politics. These contributions should be through a combination of excellent and widely influential scholarship, policy input/impact, public engagement, service, teaching, and mentorship. Nomination deadline: April 1, 2024.

 

Award Committee:

 

 

Weber Best Paper in Religion and Politics Award

Weber Best Paper in Religion and Politics Award recognizes the best paper dealing with religion and politics presented at the previous year’s APSA Annual Meeting (2023). The paper should address a timely and relevant topic, within the discipline and beyond, in a theoretically innovative and methodologically thorough manner. All papers presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting are eligible, regardless of modality of presentation (ie. in person, virtual/synchronous, and pre-recorded paper presentations are all eligible). Nomination deadline: April 1, 2024

 

Award Committee:

 

 

Aaron Wildavsky Best Dissertation Award

The Aaron Wildavsky Award recognizes the best dissertation in the field of religion and politics. Eligible dissertations have been defended in the last two years (2022 or 2023), and should make a distinctive contribution to the study of religion and politics, broadly understood. Nomination Deadline: April 1, 2024

 

Award Committee:

 

 

Kenneth D. Wald Best Graduate Student Paper Award

The Kenneth D. Wald Best Graduate Student Paper Award is given annually to a conference paper studying any aspect of religion and politics presented by a Ph.D. student in political science. The conference can be affiliated with any of the US-based political science associations or a conference affiliated with another association, such as the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the American Academy of Religion, the Middle East Studies Association, or the International Studies Association, as long as the paper was written by a student or students enrolled in a graduate program in political science and presented in 2022 or 2023. Papers written with faculty will not be considered. Papers presented at poster sessions are welcome. Nomination Deadline: April 1, 2024

 

Award Committee:

 

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award of the Religion & Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) recognizes outstanding scholars of religion and politics at the point of retirement (or shortly thereafter) who have made enduring contributions to the field through their scholarship, service, and mentorship. The award is intended to honor recipients who were regular and active Religion & Politics Section members during the periods of their primary contributions to the field. Anticipating that such scholars are exceptional, the call for nominations will remain open, the nominations will be confidential, and the award is not expected to be given every year. The Award committee will be composed of the Executive Committee of the Religion & Politics Section, chaired by the section chair, to whom nominations shall be addressed. Nomination Deadline: May 15, 2024

 

Award Committee:

  • David Buckley (chair, University of Louisville, david.buckley@louisville.edu)
  • Vineeta Yadav (Penn State University, vuy2@psu.edu)
  • Nandini Deo (Lehigh University, ndd208@lehigh.edu)
  • Paul Djupe (Denison University, djupe@denison.edu)
  • Luis Felipe Mantilla (University of South Florida, lfm1@usf.edu)
  • Eric McDaniel (University of Texas-Austin, emcdaniel@austin.utexas.edu)
  • Cammie Jo Bolin (SUNY-Albany, cbolin@albany.edu)
  • Sabri Ciftci (Kansas State University, ciftci@ksu.edu)

2022 APSA Religion & Politics Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2022 APSA Religion & Politics Award Winners!

Ted Jelen Best Journal Article Award

Winner: Joel Day (Everyday practices of toleration: The Interfaith foundations of peace accords in Sierra Leone. Politics and Religion 14(1))

Honorable Mention: Anwar Mhajne, Rasmus Brandt (Rights, Democracy, and Islamist Women’s Activism in Tunisia and Egypt. Politics and Religion 14(4))

 

Aaron Wildavsky Best Dissertation in Religion and Politics Award

Winner: Jessica Soedirgo (“The Threat of Small Things: Patterns of Repression and Mobilization Against Micro-Sized Groups in Indonesia”)

 

Hubert Morken Best Book in Religion and Politics Award

Winner:  Jonathan Laurence, Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State

Honorable Mentions:

David E. Campbell, Geoffrey C. Layman, John C. Green, Secular Surge: A New Faultline in American Politics

 

Kenneth D. Wald Best Graduate Student Paper Award

Winner: Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed (“Religious Cycles of Government Responsiveness: Why Governments Distribute in Ramadan”)

 

Weber Best Conference Paper in Religion and Politics Award

Winner: Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed (“Religious Cycles of Government Responsiveness: Why Governments Distribute in Ramadan”)

 

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph Outstanding Scholar in Religion and Politics Award

Winners: Laura Olson

2021 APSA Religion & Politics Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2021 APSA Religion & Politics Award Winners!

Ted Jelen Best Journal Article Award

Winner: Ajay Verghese (Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India. Politics and Religion 13(3), 604-638)

Honorable Mention: Andrew R. Lewis, William D. Blake, Stephen T. Mockabee, and Amanda Friesen (American Constitutional Faith and the Politics of Hermeneutics. Politics and Religion 13(1), 57-88)

 

Aaron Wildavsky Best Dissertation in Religion and Politics Award

Winner: Alexandra Blackman (“The Politicization of Faith: Settler Colonialism, Education, and Political Identity in Tunisia”)

Honorable Mention: Alon Burstein (“Terrorizing God’s Enemies: The Influence of Religion on Terror Group Activity”)

 

Hubert Morken Best Book in Religion and Politics Award

Winner:  Alexander Thurston, Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups

Honorable Mentions:

John W. Compton, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors

Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Joshua Wilson, Separate but Faithful: The Christian Right’s Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal Culture

 

Weber Best Conference Paper in Religion and Politics Award

Winner: Tugba Bozcaga & Fotini Christia

Honorable Mention: Kikue Hamayotsu

 

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph Outstanding Scholar in Religion and Politics Award

Co-winners: Jonathan Fox and Paul Djupe

 

Executive Committee and Treasurer

Scherer_150Matthew Scherer (2016-2018) – Treasurer
 
Matthew Scherer is an Assistant Professor of Government and Politics in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He directs the undergraduate program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and teaches courses in ancient, modern, and contemporary political theory, as well as constitutional law. He has held appointments as a Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs; as a Patrick Henry Postdoctoral Fellow for the study of early American politics in the departments of History and Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University; and as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD in Political Science from the Johns Hopkins University, and his BA with majors in Physics and Political Science from Williams College. More here.
 

JenkinsLauraLaura Dudley Jenkins (2016-2018)

Laura Dudley Jenkins is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati and is affiliated with Asian Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on social justice policies in the context of culturally diverse democracies, especially India, but also Indonesia, South Africa and the United States.

She is particularly interested in: politics of caste, class, religion, and gender; religious freedom and conversion; comparative affirmative action; sustainable development and culture; colonial and contemporary government anthropology; role of social science in anti-discrimination law; reserved legislative seats for women; religious family law systems. More here.

 

ClaassenRyanRyan Claassen (2016-2018)

I teach a variety of courses at Kent State University in the areas of quantitative research methods, American politics, and political behavior – at both the doctoral and undergraduate levels. My research spans several literatures including political participation, citizen competence, public opinion, election administration, religion and politics, interest groups, and racial and ethnic politics; however, the common thread is political engagement. In the broadest sense, I investigate whether engagement shapes the capacity of individuals and groups of individuals in the American public to effectively contribute to public opinion and compete democratically. My first book, “Godless Democrats and Pious Republicans?  Party Activists, Party Capture, and the ‘God Gap’” (Cambridge University Press) challenges a conventional wisdom in which recently mobilized religious and Secular extremists captured the parties and created a God gap. I also have book under advance contract with Yale University Press (with Steve Hook) exploring citizen competence in the realm of public opinion about foreign policy. My work has appeared recently in American Politics Research, The Journal of Politics, The Journal of Political Science Education, Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, and Public Opinion Quarterly. More here.

 

OldmixonElizabeth Oldmixon (2015-2017)

I am a political scientist at the University of North Texas. I received my PhD from the University of Florida in 2001, where I worked with Larry Dodd, Ken Wald, Peggy Conway, and the late Jim Button. After graduate school I served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, and I have been at UNT since fall 2002.

I am interested in how ethno-religious identities shape elite political attitudes and behaviors. I am currently working on two book projects. One focuses on LGBT politics and the other on clergy politics in the United States and Ireland. I teach a pretty broad repertoire classes, but I most frequently offer Introductory American Government, Religion and Politics, and U.S. Congress. More here.

Beginning January 1, 2017, I will serve as editor-in-chief of the Section journal Politics and Religion.

 

KdenDulkKevin Den Dulk (2015-2017)

Professor, Paul Henry Chair in Christianity and Politics, at Calvin College. Professor den Dulk is the co-author or co-editor of several books, as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and occasional pieces.  He is currently working on two large projects: (1) an examination of the role of churches in addressing religious persecution around the world; and (2) a grant-funded exploration of the effects of state educational policy on private schools.  He is active in various community-based activities, including fostering better civic education in local schools.  He serves on the board of the Michigan Center for Civic Education. More here.

 

TarekMasoud2Tarek Masoud (2015-2017)

Tarek Masoud is the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research focuses on the role of religion in the Muslim world’s political development. He is the author of Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2014), the co-author of The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform (Oxford University Press, 2015), as well as of several articles and book chapters. He is a 2009 Carnegie Scholar, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy, and the recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation and the Paul and Daisy Soros foundation, among others. He holds an AB from Brown and a Ph.D from Yale, both in political science. More here.