The Democracy Autocracy Section presented five awards for scholarly work at the 2019 APSA annual meeting in Washington, DC: the Linz Prize for Best Dissertation, and Best Book, Best Article, Best Field Work, and Best Paper prizes. The Comparative Democratization section made the first of what would become annual awards for the best book and best article published in the preceding year at the 2003 APSA meeting. (As the 2003 awards were our section\u2019s first awards, they included publications from 2001 and 2002. Subsequent awards recognize works published in a single year, as explained below.)<\/p>\n
Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner: <\/strong>Christopher L. Carter, States of Extraction: The Emergence and Effects of Indigenous Autonomy in the Americas<\/em>.<\/p>\n Honorable Mention:<\/strong> Jane Esberg, Strategies of Repression in Pinochet\u2019s Chile<\/em><\/p>\n Committee Members: <\/strong>\u00d6zge Kemahl\u0131o\u011flu (Sabanc\u0131 \u00dcniversitesi), <\/i>Francisco Garfias (University of California, San Diego), Carl LeVan (American University)<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Guillermo Trejo (University of Notre Dame), Sandra Ley (CIDE, Mexico), Votes, Drugs, and Violence: The Political Logic of Criminal Wars in Mexico<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Daniel C. Mattingly (Yale University) The Art of Political Control in China\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge University Press, 2020).<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Mariela Szwarcberg Daby (Reed College) (chair), Donghyun Danny Choi (University of Pittsburgh), and Barbara Ann Chotiner (University of Alabama)<\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik. 2020. \u201cDemocracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States,\u201d American Political Science Review, 114(2): 392-409<\/p>\n Vilde Lunnan Djuve, Carl Henrik Knutsen, and Tore Wig. 2020. \u201cPatterns of Regime Breakdown Since the French Revolution.\u201d Comparative Political Studies, 53(6): 923-958.<\/p>\n Honorable mention: Sharan Grewal. 2020. \u201cFrom Islamists to Muslim Democrats: The Case of Tunisia\u2019s Ennahda.\u201d American Political Science Review, 114(2), 519-535.<\/p>\n Robin Harding. 2020. \u201cWho is Democracy Good For? Elections, Rural Bias, and Health and Education Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa.\u201d\u00a0Journal of Politics, 82(1), 241-254.<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Tarek Masoud (Harvard University), Amanda Edgell (University of Alabama), Aditya Dasgupta (University of California, Merced)<\/p>\n Best Field Work Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner: <\/strong>Mashail Malik<\/p>\n Honorable Mention:<\/strong> Michelle Weitzel<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Kurt Weyland, (University of Texas, Austin), Basak Taraktas (Bogazici University), Natalie Letsa (University of Oklahoma)<\/p>\n Best Paper Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Nikhar Gaikwad, Erin Lin, and Noah Zucker for “Genocide and the Gender Gap in Political Representation”<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Adrienne LeBas (American University), Matt Winters (University of Illinois), Howard Sanborn (Virginia Military Institute)<\/p>\n Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Donghyun Danny Choi (University of Pittsburgh), for his dissertation, Severed Connections: Political Parties and Democratic Responsiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa<\/em>.<\/p>\n Committee Members: <\/strong>Chair: Nikhar Gaikwad (Columbia University), Kate Baldwin (Yale University), James Hollyer (University of Minnesota)<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>Sheri Berman(Barnard College), for Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien R\u00e9gime to the Present Day <\/em>(Oxford UP, 2019).<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Alberto Simpser (ITAM), Aditya Dasgupta (UC Merced), Jan Pierskalla (The Ohio State University)<\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners:\u00a0<\/strong>Francisco Garfias (University of California, San Diego), for his 2018 article,”Elite Coalitions, Limited Government, and Fiscal Capacity Development: Evidence from Bourbon Mexico” (Journal of Politics<\/em> 81(1): 94-111).<\/p>\n Honorable mention: Guillermo Trejo (University of Notre Dame) and Sandra Ley (Centro de Investigaci\u00f3n y Docencia Econ\u00f3micas), for their 2019 article, “High-Profile Criminal Violence: Why Drug Cartels Murder Government Officials and Party Candidates in Mexico” (British Journal of Political Science<\/em> 1-27).<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Deborah Yashar (Princeton University), Tom Pepinsky (Cornell University), Sanjay Ruparelia (Ryerson University)<\/p>\n Best Field Work Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Sana Jaffrey (University of Chicago, PhD) and Chris Carter (University of California, Berkeley, PhD)<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Danny Choi (University of Pittsburgh), Lauren Young (UC Davis), Kikue Hamayotsu (Northern Illinois University)<\/p>\n Best Paper Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>Matthew Graham (Yale University) and Milan Svolik (Yale University), for \u201cDemocracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Mariano S\u00e1nchez-Talanquer (CIDE), Eva Bellin (Brandeis University), Michael Coppedge (University of Notre Dame)<\/p>\n Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Nikhar Gaikwad, \u201cIdentity Politics and Economic Policy\u201d (Yale University)<\/p>\n Committee Members:<\/strong> Chair: Soleded Prillaman (Nuffield College at the University of Oxford), Elizabeth R. Nugent (Yale University), Noam Lupu (Vanderbilt University)<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner: <\/strong>Deborah Yashar, Homicidal Ecologies: Illicit Economies and Complicit States in Latin America<\/em> (CUP, 2018)<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Jan Teorell (Lund University), Maya Tudor (Stanford University, Oxford University), Seva Gunitsky (University of Toronto)<\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Fiona Shen-Bayh, “Strategies of Repression,” World Politics<\/em>, Volume 70, Issue 3, July 2018 , pp. 321-357. And Aditya Dasgupta’s “Technological Change and Political Turnover,” APSR<\/em>, Volume 112, Issue 4 November 2018 , pp. 918-938<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Michael Albertus (University of Chicago), Bryn Rosenfeld (University of Southern California), Jason Wittenberg (University of California, Berkeley)<\/p>\n Best Field Work Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winners: <\/strong>Rachael S. McLellan (Princeton University), Hind Ahmed Zaki (University of Washington)<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Egor Lazarev (University of Toronto), Sule Yaylaci (University of British Columbia), H. Zeynep Bulutgil (University College London)<\/p>\n Best Paper Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner: <\/strong>Mariano S\u00e1nchez-Talanquer, Centro de Investigaci\u00f3n y Docencia Econ\u00f3micas (CIDE), \u201cSuffrage Restrictions and the Reach of the Nation-State.\u201d<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Daniel Treisman (University of California, Los Angeles), Imke Harbers (University of Amsterdam), Agustina Giraudy\u00a0(American University)<\/p>\n Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Soledad Prillaman, Why Women Mobilize: Dissecting and Dismantling India\u2019s Gender Gap in Political Participation<\/em>. Harvard University.<\/p>\n Honorable mention<\/strong>: Elizabeth Nugent, The Political Psychology of Repression and Polarization in Authoritarian Regimes<\/em>. Princeton University.<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Karen E. Ferree (University of California, San Diego), Avital Livny (Illinois), Matthew Rhodes Purdy (Clemson University)<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Daniel Ziblatt. 2017. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy<\/em>. New York: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Stephan Haggard (UC, San Diego), Sheena Chestnut Greitens (University of Missouri), Erik S. Herron (West Virginia University)<\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Michael Albertus. 2017. \u201cLandowners & Democracy: The Social Origins of Democracy Reconsidered.\u201d World Politics<\/em> 69(2): 233-276.<\/p>\n Honorable mention<\/strong>: Bryn Rosenfeld. 2017. \u201cReevaluating the Middle-Class Protest Paradigm: A Case-Control Study of Democratic Protest Coalitions in Russia.\u201d American Political Science Review<\/em> 111(4): 637-652.<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Chair: Kurt Weyland (University of Texas, Austin), Milan Svolik (Yale University), Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (Arizona State University)<\/p>\n Best Field Work Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Egor Lazarev<\/p>\n Honorable mention<\/strong>: Elizabeth Nugent and \u015eule Yaylac\u0131<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Daniel Corstange (Columbia University), Nicholas Barnes (Brown University), Sarah Bush (Temple University)<\/p>\n Best Paper Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Winner:<\/strong> Elizabeth R. Nugent, \u201cThe Psychology of Repression and Polarization in Authoritarian Regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Honorable mention<\/strong>: Dan Treisman, \u201cDemocracy by Mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Committee Members<\/strong>: Lenka Bustikova (Arizona State University), Cristina Corduneanu-Huci (Central European University), Jonathan Krieckhaus (University of Missouri)<\/p>\n Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Bryn Rosenfeld (Nuffield College, Oxford) for her dissertation on \u201d Varieties of Middle Class Growth and Preference Formation.\u201d<\/p>\n Committee Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Henry Thomson (Nuffield College); Mai Hassan (University of Michigan); and Christian von Soest (GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies)<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>Bryn Rosenfeld\u2019s Dissertation,\u00a0Varieties of Middle Class Growth and Preference Formation<\/em>\u00a0is an insightful and fascinating study of economic development, the growth of the middle class and democratization. Rosenfeld engages with canonical theories of economic and political change to question the link between the middle classes and demands for democracy. Drawing on evidence from the former Soviet Union, she argues that contemporary autocratic regimes often control access to the middle class, particularly through public sector employment. They use this control to exert a pernicious influence on individuals\u2019 support for democracy and propensity to engage in collective action. Throughout, this dissertation carefully and rigorously analyzes new and interesting data on both public opinion and protest behavior, using advanced quantitative methods. It also makes a major contribution by implementing a novel case-control design for drawing inferences on the characteristics of protest participants which can be adopted by other researchers. Rosenfeld makes a significant contribution to our understanding of democratization in the post-Soviet world and to our theories linking economic development and democratic reform. Her key findings also shed light on developments in authoritarian states outside the post-Soviet world and will be of interest to all scholars of comparative politics. She is a very worthy recipient of the 2016 Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democratization.<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Kenneth Roberts for his book,\u00a0Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge University Press, 2015).<\/p>\n C<\/strong>ommittee Members:\u00a0<\/strong>Kurt Weyland (University of Texas at Austin); Sheena Chestnut Greitens (University of Missouri); and Rachel Beatty Riedl (Domaine Universitaire)<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>The award committee \u2013 Sheena Chestnut Greitens from the University of Missouri, Rachel Beatty Riedl from Northwestern University, and Kurt Weyland from the University of Texas at Austin \u2013 received thirty-one submissions this year. We conducted the selection process in two rounds and at least two of us assessed each entry. We read a number of very good, even excellent books \u2013 so academic production on political regime issues continues to be vibrant and exciting!<\/p>\n In the end, a clear winner emerged easily and by consensus: Kenneth Roberts,\u00a0Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge University Press, 2015). What makes this book stand out is the author\u2019s ambitious and successful effort to \u201cmake sense\u201d of and bring theoretical order to a topic of massive cross-sectional and longitudinal scope, namely party systems in Latin America over the course of several decades. This is a difficult analytical challenge, given the volatility and variation that these party systems have experienced. Roberts develops a complex argument that systematically weaves together economic, social, political, and institutional factors and thus accounts for the historical constitution of Latin American party systems and their later transformations\u2014a topic of crucial significance for the emergence of democracy, its consolidation, and its potential erosion.<\/p>\n By going beyond the usual focus on the \u201cmajor\u201d Latin American countries, most of which used to have labor-mobilizing party systems, Roberts identifies a second broad type, namely elitist party systems, which prevailed mainly in the smaller and less developed countries of the region. One of the principal\u2014and paradoxical\u2014insights of the study is that contrary to European experiences, labor-mobilizing party systems proved less resilient to drastic economic adjustment and market reform, the major shock highlighted in this structuralist account. How \u201cneoliberalism\u201d was enacted then shaped the degree and type of change that Latin American party systems underwent especially during the last two decades: where conservatives spearheaded market reform (as in Brazil and Chile, e.g.), party-based opposition from the left led to a programmatic alignment in the party system. By contrast, where leftists or populists were compelled to impose tough adjustment, this unexpected policy switch produced programmatic de-alignment, soon prompted a radical backlash, and thus threw party systems into turmoil. In sum, as Roberts shows, the collapse of state-led development and the transition to neoliberalism fundamentally reshaped the character and purpose of state power, the patterns of association in civil society, and the nature of state-society relations. And this reshaping occurred in different forms according to the extent of lower-class political incorporation and elite party control.<\/p>\n Roberts carefully develops these arguments and supports them with a multi-methods approach that combines statistical analysis with a set of country cases. In drawing together a variety of causal factors, Roberts parses out their specific contributions and speaks to a number of important literatures, all focused on the interrelation of market reform, party systems, and democratic development. The author systematically explains the causal linkages between these diverse factors, producing a superb theoretical synthesis. He develops a sophisticated argument that bridges political economy, democratic transitions, and party politics to shed light on a series of crucial developments in Latin American politics.<\/p>\n By tracing historical processes over a long time frame through the effective, thoughtful use of a \u201ccritical junctures\u201d framework, the book offers a broad canvas that richly covers important dimensions of Latin America\u2019s socioeconomic and political development. While the historical paths before and after the challenges arising from neoliberalism do not neatly align by forming a \u201cbranching tree,\u201d Roberts puts fundamental categories of historical institutionalism to excellent use and provides an insightful overview of party evolution in Latin America from the 1930s to the 2010s. The book presents a masterful blend of deep history, comparative case study, succinct and innovative theory, and broad connections to the literature. In its focus on Latin America, the analysis speaks to current global debates on democratization, critical junctures, political party systems, and neoliberal reform. It engages relevant debates from across the field, and offers new insights into how the interaction of state, market, and party competition can have dramatic consequences for democratic stability and volatility.<\/p>\n Condensing many years of thinking and research,\u00a0Changing Course in Latin America<\/em>\u00a0is exceedingly well-crafted. The committee unanimously felt that among all of the books we received, this volume stood out with its enormous scope and academic contributions. Kenneth Roberts has written a magnificent book that richly deserves the 2016 award of APSA\u2019s Comparative Democratization section.<\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Daniel Treisman (UCLA) for \u201cIncome, Democracy, and Leader Turnover\u201d (published in the\u00a0American Journal of Political Science\u00a0<\/em>in 2015).<\/p>\n Committee Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Jordan Gans-Morse (Northwestern University); Sebastian Mazzuca (Johns Hopkins University); and Simeon Nichter (UC San Diego)<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>Treisman tackles one of the\u00a0foundational questions in comparative politics \u2013 does economic development lead to democratization? \u2013 and adds novel insights to a long-enduring debate.\u00a0 How is it that after decades of studies, no consensus has been reached about this fundamental question?\u00a0 Treisman shows that in part it is because the debate has paid short shrift to critical distinctions between the short and medium term, changes in and levels of economic development, and the role of structure and agency.\u00a0 Offering a theoretical framework centered around the impact of leader turnover, Treisman impressively manages to integrate these disparate considerations into a unified theory. While the structural pressures of economic development may have a democratizing effect, regime change will occur when entrenched dictators leave office. Employing rigorous econometric techniques, Treisman shows that data are remarkable consistent with his theory\u2019s predictions.\u00a0 Along the way, he helps to explain a number of underappreciated yet important stylized facts, such as the stronger relationship between economic development and democratization in the middle term (10 to 20 years) than in the short term. Overall, Treisman\u2019s article is a major contribution to the study of comparative democratization, and to comparative politics more broadly.<\/p>\n Best Field Work Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Pia Raffler, Yale University for her fieldwork in Uganda. Kathleen Klaus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for her fieldwork in Kenya<\/p>\n Committee Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Barry Driscoll (Grinnell College); Michael Broache (University of Tampa); and Colm Fox (Singapore Management University)<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winners:\u00a0<\/strong>It is with great pleasure that the Fieldwork Award Committee\u2014Barry Driscoll of Grinnell College, Michael Broache of the University of Tampa, and Colm Fox of Singapore Management University\u2014announces that Pia Raffler of Yale University and Kathleen Klaus of UW-Madison are co-recipients of the 2016 APSA Fieldwork Award.<\/p>\n Pia\u2019s dissertation develops and tests a novel theory concerning the relationship between political oversight of bureaucrats and service provision by local governments, combining qualitative and experimental methods that involved 18 months of in-depth fieldwork in Uganda.<\/p>\n The theory developed in Ms. Raffler\u2019s dissertation addresses a critical question in political economy, with particular relevance to emerging democracies: how and under what conditions increased democratic accountability affects the provision of government services at the local level. Pia posits that increased oversight will improve service delivery, conditional on the underlying issue impeding effective service delivery and the integrity of bureaucrats and officials. This theory is directly informed by hundreds of in-depth, semi-structured interviews that Ms. Raffler conducted with local government officials and civil society representatives.<\/p>\n To test this theory, Ms. Raffler used extensive contacts with government agencies and researchers to design and implement a field experiment involving the rollout of a reform that affected local politicians\u2019 and challengers\u2019 access to budgetary information and capacity to exercise oversight vis-\u00e0-vis bureaucrats in 260 localities nationwide. Working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, Ms. Raffler managed an extensive logistical operation, including the recruitment and training of local facilitators to administer training workshops to over 3,000 local government officials and challengers and the dissemination of local budgetary information, while at the same time organizing an impressive data collection effort that involved a panel survey of over 2,800 politicians and bureaucrats, physical inspections of over 1,200 local government project sites, and review of local-level budgeting and voting data.<\/p>\n The Committee also wishes to be clear that while Pia\u2019s fieldwork is unusual in its very high levels of funding, it was neither the magnitude of the study nor the resources at her disposal that made Pia\u2019s work stand out. Rather, what made it stand out was the complexity involved in carrying out such ambitious work, and in doing so in such a careful and methodical way. Ms. Raffler\u2019s research provides valuable insights into the conditions under which interventions to enhance democratic accountability may promote the effective provision of government services at the local level. These insights were only possible as a result of Ms. Raffler\u2019s rigorous fieldwork, which required deep knowledge of the country context, extensive cooperation with local officials, and management of a highly complex logistical project. Ms. Raffler\u2019s work is therefore a deserving recipient of the Best Fieldwork Award.<\/p>\n Kathleen\u2019s dissertation looks at the connection between land allocation and electoral violence in Kenya. Her research uses a multi-staged research design implemented during 15 months of fieldwork.<\/p>\n In the first stage, Kathleen employs an in-depth qualitative approach using intensive micro-comparative case studies. To build her argument from the ground up, she did hundreds of lengthy interviews and dozens of focus groups across numerous carefully selected cases. Through this, she finds that land was often allocated unevenly, that it created \u2018contentious land narratives\u2019 in some regions, and ultimately, that these narratives resulted in electoral violence in some of these regions, but not in others.<\/p>\n For the second stage, Kathleen drew on her qualitative research to designed context-relevant questions for a 750 household survey. The survey was implemented across regions that experienced violence and those that did not. Given the sensitivity nature of the survey, Kathleen utilized list experiments and also used experimental questions that randomized an \u201cethnic cue\u201d.<\/p>\n Ultimately Kathleen finds that when the allocation of land was unequal and lacked legitimacy, \u2018contentious land narratives\u2019 developed. Politicians could then draw on these narratives to mobilize for violence. But this only occurred if voters believed their land access and rights hinged on the outcome of the election.<\/p>\n In preparation for fieldwork, Kathleen developed a deep knowledge of Kenya and learned Swahili. During fieldwork she spent a significant amount of time engaging with Kenyans in urban and rural areas, and managed a team of enumerators to implement a sophisticated survey under difficult circumstances. Overall, the sophistication in the planning and execution of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of Kathleen\u2019s research is truly remarkable and represents the very best in fieldwork.<\/p>\n Only through extensive fieldwork at the micro-level, was Kathleen able to develop an original argument that placed ordinary citizens and their experiences at the center of the analysis. It moves beyond simplistic explanations based on instrumentalism or ethnicity, to explain how history, land access, local understandings, and political competition can result in electoral violence. It richly deserves the prize as joint-winner of the Best Fieldwork Award.<\/p>\n Best Paper Award<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Anne Meng (UC Berkeley) for her paper on \u201cRuling Parties in Authoritarian Regimes: A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change\u201d<\/p>\n Committee Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Ken Greene (University of Texas at Austin); Allen Hicken (University of Michigan); and Edmund Malesky (Duke University)<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>In her compelling paper, \u201cRuling Parties in Authoritarian Regimes: A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change\u201d, Anne Meng argues that weaker autocrats create institutionalized ruling parties whereas stronger ones rely on personalist regimes. \u00a0Moving away from Huntington\u2019s notion of party institutionalization as the infusion of value by its members, Meng argues that the institutionalization of authoritarian incumbent parties should be understood as a commitment to resource-sharing between a dictator and his support coalition. \u00a0As she shows with careful formal modeling, strong rulers can survive by doling out patronage at will whereas weaker ones must commit to a permanent minimum level of resource sharing through a \u201ca semi-autonomous organization that can enforce joint rule\u201d.<\/p>\n She tests her argument on one-party regimes in sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to 2005, arguing that initially strong autocrats were leaders of independence movements or created their own dominant parties, making them more difficult to remove than weaker autocrats who were more closely aligned with outgoing colonial powers. Meng\u2019s paper is an important advance in the study of autocratic regimes. The existing literature agrees that institutionalized ruling parties generate political stability, but Meng presents a thoughtful argument about the origins of such parties. Her work also implies a cruel twist of path dependent fate. Initially strong leaders are compelled to go it alone, failing to broaden their support coalition and to establish clear lines of succession. As a result, subsequent regimes may be surprisingly unstable. At the same time, initially weaker autocrats survive by distributing political and economic power to regime supporters and thus may sew the seeds of stability. The committee was impressed with the methodological rigor and incisiveness of Meng\u2019s work and we look forward to seeing it appear in journals and a book in the years to come.<\/p>\n Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Henry Thomson (University of Oxford) for his dissertation on \u201cFood and Power: Authoritarian Regime Durability and Agricultural Policy.\u201d Thomson completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n Committee Members:\u00a0<\/strong>Leonid Peisakhin (New York University); Paula Valeria Munoz Chirinos (Universidad del Pac\u00edfico); and Arturas Rozenas (New York University).<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>Henry Thomson\u2019s dissertation is an especially insightful and in-depth study of the dynamics of authoritarian survival. Thomson sets out to explain how authoritarian rulers manipulate agricultural policies and resultant food prices under the pressure of demands from urban residents and rural agricultural producers. Thomson demonstrates that dictators who are especially dependent on elite support are likely to tolerate higher food prices in order to appease large-scale agricultural producers. This argument challenges the common wisdom that dictators are especially beholden to urban interests. Forced to pander to wealthy rural interests by the nature of elite politics, some authoritarians are pushed onto a particular developmental trajectory, which eventually comes to shape democratic transition via feedback loops. In laying out his argument and supporting it with empirics, Thomson brings to bear an impressive knowledge of the theories of political development and masterfully deploys cross-national data as well as a fascinating case study of Imperial Germany under Bismarck. All in all, the author tackles an important and overlooked question with theoretical rigor, meticulous attention to detail, and stellar use of empirical methods, all along remaining keenly aware of the argument\u2019s limitations and pitfalls. These qualities make this dissertation especially worthy of the legacy of Juan Linz.<\/p>\n Best Book Award<\/strong><\/p>\n Kurt Weyland (University of Texas at Austin) for\u00a0Making Waves: Democratic Contention in Europe and Latin America since 1848<\/em>(Cambridge University Press).<\/p>\n Honorable Mentions:\u00a0<\/em>Rachel Beatty Ridel (Northwestern University) for\u00a0Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa<\/em>(Cambridge University Press) and Ben Ansell (University of Oxford) and David Samuels (University of Minnesota) for\u00a0Inequality and Democratization An Elite-Competition Approach\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge University Press)<\/p>\n Committee Members:\u00a0<\/strong>Scott Mainwaring (University of Notre Dame); An\u00edbal P\u00e9rez- Li\u00f1\u00e1n (University of Pittsburgh); and Anna Grzymala-Busse (University of Michigan).<\/p>\n Committee\u2019s Remarks on the Award Winner:\u00a0<\/strong>The committee selected Kurt Weyland\u2019s book,\u00a0Making Waves: Democratic Contention in Europe and Latin America since the Revolutions of 1848<\/em>, as the winner of the 2015 prize for the best book in comparative democratization among the 35 books submitted.\u00a0Making Waves\u00a0<\/em>covers a grand sweep of time and geography with an interesting original research question and argument. Weyland notes that early waves of regime contention in Europe (1848 and 1917-19) occurred more rapidly but with lower rates of success of achieving democracy than a later wave in South America (1979- 90).<\/p>\n To explain this puzzle, he develops an organizational argument grounded in theories of bounded rationality. The earlier waves of contention occurred before political parties, labor unions, and other organizations that characterize modern mass democracy became well-entrenched. As a result, popular contention spread rapidly, but without leadership that took more informed decisions. In contrast, organizational leaders with more information and more seasoned judgments had the capacity to spur or moderate popular contention in the third wave of democratization. Protest against authoritarian regimes spread more slowly, but it was more likely to succeed.<\/p>\n The committee recognized with an Honorable Mention citations the excellent books by Ben W. Ansell and David J. Samuels,\u00a0Inequality and Democratization: An Elite-Competition Approach,\u00a0<\/em>and Rachel Beatty Riedl,\u00a0Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n Best Article Award<\/strong><\/p>\n Jordan Gans-Morse (Northwestern University), Sebastian Mazzuca (Universidad Nacional de San Mart\u00edn and CIAS), and Simeon Nichter (University of California, San Diego) for their article \u201cVarieties of Clientelism: Machine Politics During Elections\u201d\u00a0American Journal of Political Science\u00a0<\/em>58, 2 (2014): 415-432.<\/p>\n2020 Section Award Winners<\/strong><\/h4>\n
2019 Section Award Winners<\/strong><\/h4>\n
2018 Section Award Winners<\/strong><\/h4>\n
2016 Section Award Winners<\/strong><\/h4>\n
2015 Section Award Winners<\/strong><\/h4>\n