Lifetime Achievement Award
Prize goes to the late Professor Marian Simms
The Executive Committee decided to give this year’s award to the late Prof. Marian Simms, commemorating her contribution to transforming the APSA, making it a better association from a gender equality perspective.
Mayer Journal Prize
Prize goes to Sarah Cameron
Paper: (2020) ‘Government Performance and Dissatisfaction with Democracy in Australia’, Australian Journal of Political Science, Volume 55(2), pp. 170-190.
Judging panel comments: This article was a deserving winner of the Mayer Journal Prize with its original contribution to the literature on elections, public opinion, and representative democracy. Using data from the Australian Election Study, Cameron was able to convincingly show how Australians’ satisfaction with democracy has eroded in the wake of persistent leadership churn and perceptions of poor economic performance. The article innovates in its methodologically rigorous empirical analysis of the impact of the leadership ‘spills’ that have characterised Australian major parties in the last decade, and their broader, long-term implications for the health of Australian democracy. The article is an outstanding example of scholarship and analysis that is communicated extremely clearly, with the presentation of data immediately accessible to a generalist readership.
Highly commended goes to Feodor Snagovsky, Woo Chang Kang, Jillian Sheppard and Nicholas Biddle.
Paper: (2002) ‘Does Descriptive Representation Increase Perceptions of Legitimacy’, Australian Journal of Political Science, Volume 55 (4), pp. 378-398.
Judging panel comments: The Committee noted the originality of the analysis and the innovative methodology used by the authors in combining an analysis of Australian Election Study data with a conjoint experiment to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between the representation of ethnic minorities and political efficacy. Engaging with several ‘big picture’ questions on the representation of diverse communities in Australian politics, the research findings have important implications for the utility of different models of representation and the effect of group identities on political behaviour and attitudes.
Chair of the judging panel: Anika Gauja
PhD Thesis Prize
Prize goes to Lars Moen
Thesis: The Republican Dilemma: Liberating Republicanism, Sacrificing Pluralism
Judging panel comments: Moen’s thesis identifies and examines a dilemma arising for republican concepts of freedom: between adopting a moderate republican freedom that is indistinct from pure negative freedom (i.e. the absence of any interference whatever) and adopting a stronger form of republicanism that would reduce the scope of freedom in ways that undermine pluralism and liberal neutrality.
Juxtaposing different concepts of freedom and their relationship to republicanism, pluralism and liberalism, Moen provides a highly original and sophisticated argument of considerable importance for the challenges faced by contemporary liberal democracies. This thesis critically engages with an impressive array of theoretical approaches and combines them into unique arguments in each of the thesis’ substantive chapters. In so doing, Moen challenges our general understanding of how individuals’ freedom from interference is realised in modern society, a challenge that is even more important in times of global crises.
Moen’s thesis demonstrates an academic maturity that is exceedingly rare from a PhD scholar and this monograph will make a very fine publication. It is a testament to Moen’s clarity and economy of expression and his ability to draw the reader into his abstract study, that this thesis amply demonstrates contemporary relevance in an engaging and thought-provoking way. Truly excellent.
Highly commended goes to Alexandra Edney-Browne
Thesis: The Drone Interface: A Relational Study of U.S. Drone Violence in Afghanistan
Judging panel comments: This thesis is a unique, brilliantly written empirical study of the consequences of military drone violence. By taking a critical approach that focuses on human and relational aspects of these consequences, this thesis provides an unusual perspective into the political research on violent conflicts. Edney-Browne provides a novel theoretical approach and an impressive collection of unique interviews with individuals that are affected by drone violence both as victims and as operators. This thesis pushes the boundaries of conflict studies in an innovative and engaging way, going beyond its own field to show how technology and societal hierarchies like racism and sexism interact in conflicts and inflict insurmountable harm at the individual and societal level.
Chair of the judging panel: Peter Tangney
Henry Mayer Book Prize for Australian Politics
Prize goes to Sally Young
Title: (2019), Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires, UNSW Press.
Judging panel comments: Sally Young’s Paper Emperors is an engrossing historical study of the origins of our highly consolidated press and media landscape, and the extraordinary figures who created these empires. Meticulously researched, it is engaging, accessible and as gripping as Citizen Kane. It provides a rich trove of original and accessible research for scholars and the public alike that is an important contribution to our knowledge of the media in Australia. It charts and explains the multiple webs of political and business relationships as well as the complex interpersonal politics that sits at the heart of media politics in Australia. In every respect Paper Emperors is a ‘tour de force’. It will be an essential reference work for the study of media politics in Australia for decades to come
Highly Commended goes to Jenny Hocking
Title: (2020), The Palace Letters: The Queen, the Governor-General, and the Plot to Dismiss Whitlam, Scribe Publications.
Judging panel comments: Jenny Hocking’s The Palace Letters is a significant and original contribution to our understanding of Australian politics. Accessibly written, The Palace Letters combines the adventure of a detective story with a scholarly meditation on Australian constitutionalism. It sheds new light on previously unknown aspects of the Whitlam dismissal, in particular the continuing capacity of British Monarchs and their representatives profoundly to influence Australian political events. The book is also an object lesson concerning the challenges of archival research as it also tells the story behind the research materials upon which much of the study rests. The Palace Letters stands as a testament to the importance of our national archives and to the necessity for these to be accessible and transparent if our historical record is to be preserved.
Chair of the judging panel: Jim Jose
Carole Pateman Gender and Politics Book Prize
Prize goes to Kerryn Baker
Title: (2019), Pacific Women in Politics: Gender Quota Campaigns in the Pacific Islands, University of Hawaii Press.
Judging panel comments: The committee was unanimous in awarding the 2021 APSA Carol Pateman book prize to Dr Kerryn Baker. Dr Baker’s book makes two important contributions to the field of gender and politics. First, it provides a comprehensive examination of role of women in the politics, elections, and social reform processes across four Pacific nations. Dr Baker provides a systematic comparison of the circumstances in which proposals for electoral quotas to enhance women’s representation in legislative politics; her highly detailed insights (drawing on more than 70 interviews and focus groups in the region) extend the international literature on the necessary conditions for pro-women electoral reforms to flourish. Second, and more provocatively, Baker argues that conventional forms of measuring success in gender quotas – including whether they adopted by parties as voluntary targets, introduced as legislation, or embedded constitutionally, the extent to which they increase the presence of women in a legislature, and changes in policy outcomes as a result – are insufficient. Even when quotas are not introduced, the experience of debating the role of women in legislative politics can represent meaningful success, especially in non-Western contexts.
Chair of the judging panel: Jillian Sheppard
ANZSOG Prize
Prize goes to Celia Green
Paper: Investigating the production and communication of evidence by the Productivity Commission: Apolitical, political, or somewhere in between? Australian Journal of Public Administration. doi: 10.1111/1467-8500.12450. [with Gemma Carey and Eleanor Malbon]
Judging panel comments: Fascinating and well argued. This article has direct relevance for contemporary policy practice in Australia. The study and the analysis of the evidence is well nuanced, and the findings are well linked to related research in the field of public policy and public administration. The paper provides important insights into contemporary policy practice, the role of evidence in policy decision making processes, and links this to broader issues of how agencies seek to steer and add to the exercise and production of public value. Important areas and approaches for future research are also identified.
Chair of the judging panel: Joshua Newman.
Academic Leadership in Political Science Award
Prize goes to Sarah Maddison
Judging panel comments: Professor Maddison exemplifies the values and aspirations that are central to the academic leadership award. Professor Maddison has worked to build capacity “to engage with contemporary Australian colonialism, and to address its exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholars”. Professor Maddison has been critical to the creation of the First People’s Politics Forum, and in partnership with A/Professor Nakata, established the Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration at Melbourne University. Professor Maddison has been an unyielding advocate for academic pluralism and a passionate champion of her colleagues. In the words of one of the nominators, Professor Maddison “is determined and willing to take risks for what she values and what is truly important for our discipline, and I believe it takes someone like her to create deep change”.
Chair of the judging panel: Narelle Miragliotta
Postgraduate Conference Paper Prize
Prize goes to Michael Kumove
Judging panel comments: This paper is an important contribution to the literature on social capital, which has assumed that outgroup trust affects generalized trust, and in particular that low trust in outgroups bleeds into low generalised trust.
The paper tests this assumption by assessing the impact of outgroup salience on the relationship between outgroup and generalised trust. As it correctly argues, if the two are causally connected, one should find that increased exposure to outgroups should also increase the correlation between these two variables.
Using surveys from Croatia and the United States, the paper finds that this is not the case, thus supporting a strong prima facie argument that low trust in an outgroup does not cause individuals to be less trusting overall. Commendably, the paper is also very transparent about the limitations of the data it uses, and it goes some way to address at least some of them (for example, by the use sub-sample analysis).
In sum, this is a cogently argued paper that analyses data in a clear and well-presented way to address a theoretical issue with significant policy implications. The judging panel was unanimous in selecting this paper for the award. The paper presents a well-constructed problem and cogently argued paper that analyses data in a clear and well-presented way to address a theoretical issue with significant policy implications. It reaches publishable standard in the view of the panel (possibly in an outlet such as Comparative Political Studies).
Highly commended goes to Simran Keshwani
Paper: Imagining the ‘Other’: How does outgroup trust affect generalised trust?'
Judging Panel comments: This paper shows that the Indian State has played a key role in developing the Indian solar energy industry. The paper sets this finding in the context of the International Political Economy literature on India, which has for the most part presented it as inefficient and its action as subject to undue influence by special interests.
In other words, the paper finds that, contrary to expectations, the Indian State has operated as a so-called developmental State. This is an important finding that can be used as the launchpad for further research on the causal factors behind the apparent success of government policies in the solar energy industry, including both domestic and international factors. In line with previous research (Evans 1995), the author could also ask whether this success is connected to specific features of the industry or to relatively short-term political factors
Overall, this is a sophisticated and somewhat technical paper, successfully blending theory with a thoroughly researched subject area – especially noteworthy for a student at a research-Masters level. It could make a valuable contribution to IPE debates in an outlet such as Review of International Political Economy.
