2021 APSA Democracy and Autocracy Section Award Winners
The Democracy and Autocracy Section of the American Political Science Association is proud to announce the 2021 winners of our section’s five annual awards: the Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation, and the Best Book, Best Article, Best Field Work, and Best Paper awards. Congratulations to the winners!
1. Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy (Prize citation)
- Winner: Christopher Carter, States of Extraction: The Emergence and Effects of Indigenous Autonomy in the Americas
- Honorable Mention: Jane Esberg, Strategies of Repression in Pinochet’s Chile
Committee members: Chair: Ozge Kemahlioglu, Sabancı University (ozge.kemahlioglu@sabanciuniv.edu), Francisco Garfias, University of California, San Diego (fgarfias@ucsd.edu), Carl LeVan, American University (levan@american.edu)
2. Best Article Award (Prize citation)
- Winner 1: Vilde Lunnan Djuve, Carl Henrik Knutsen, and Tore Wig, “Patterns of Regime Breakdown Since the French Revolution,” Comparative Political Studies, 2020
- Winner 2: Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik, “Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States,” American Political Science Review, 2020
- Honorable Mention 1: Sharan Grewal, “From Islamists to Muslim Democrats: The Case of Tunisia’s Ennahda,” American Political Science Review, 2020
- Honorable Mention 2: Robin Harding, “Who Is Democracy Good For? Elections, Rural Bias, and Health and Education Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of Politics, 2020
Committee members: Chair: Tarek Masoud, Harvard University (tarek_masoud@harvard.edu), Amanda Edgell, University of Alabama (abedgell@ua.edu), Aditya Dasgupta, Assistant Professor (adasgupta3@ucmerced.edu)
3. Best Book Award (Prize citation)
- Winner 1: Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley, Votes, Drugs, and Violence
- Winner 2: Daniel Mattingly, The Art of Political Control
Committee members: Chair: Mariela Daby, Reed College (mariela@reed.edu), Danny Choi, University of Pittsburgh (dannychoi@pitt.edu), Barbara Ann Chotiner, University of Alabama (bchotiner@ua.edu)
4. Best Field Work Award (Prize citation)
- Winner: Mashail Malik, “The Microfoundations of Identity Politics in Pakistan’s Megacity”
- Honorable Mention: Michelle Weitzel, “Drones, Sirens, and Prayer Calls: Unheard Consequences of a Politics of Sound”
Committee members: Chair: Kurt Weyland, University of Texas at Austin (kweyland@austin.utexas.edu), Natalie Letsa, University of Oklahoma (nwletsa@ou.edu), Basak Taraktas, Boğaziçi University (basak.taraktas@boun.edu.tr)
5. Best Paper Award (Prize citation)
- Winner: Nikhar Gaikwad, Erin Lin, and Noah Zucker, “Genocide and the Gender Gap in Political Representation”
Committee members: Chair: Adrienne LeBas, American University (lebas@american.edu), Matt Winters, University of Illinois (mwinters@illinois.edu), Howard Sanborn, Virginia Military Institute (SanbornHB@vmi.edu)
To view award winners from past years, please visit our archive.