Subject Guide: Political Science: Award-winning books

The Gladys M. Kammerer award is given each year for the best political science publication in the previous calendar year in the field of U.S. national policy. For more information about the American Political Science Association, sponsor of this award, click American Political Science Association.

2022  Hijacking the Agenda: Economic Power and Political Influence by C. Witko, J. Morgan, N.J. Kelly, and P.K. Enns
2021  The limits of party : Congress and lawmaking in a polarized era by James Curry and Frances Lee
2020  Good enough for government work : the public reputation crisis in America (and what we can do to fix it) by Amy E. Lerman
2019  Politics at work : how companies turn their workers into lobbyists by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
2018  The myth of independence : how Congress governs the Federal Reserve by Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel
2017  Above politics : bureaucratic discretion and credible commitment by Gary J. Miller and Andrew B. Whitford
2016  Sailing the water's edge : the domestic politics of American foreign policy by Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley
2015  Legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress : the lawmakers by Alan Wiseman and Craig Volden
2014  White-collar government : the hidden role of class in economic policy making by Nicholas Carnes
2013  The social citizen : peer networks and political behavior by Betsy Sinclair
2012  Access points : an institutional theory of policy bias and complexity by Sean Ehrlich
2011  The litigation state : public regulation and private lawsuits in the U. S. by Sean Farhang
2010  The straight state : sexuality and citizenship in twentieth-century America by Margot Canaday; The fifth freedom : jobs, politics, and civil rights in the United States, 1941-1972 by Anthony S. Chen
2009  Unequal democracy: the political economy of the new gilded age by Larry Bartels
2008  Affirmative advocacy : race, class and gender by Dara Z. Stolovitch; The decline of the death penalty and the discovery of innocence by Frank R. Baumgartner, Suzanna L. DeBoef, and Amber E. Boydstun
2007  The foreign policy disconnect : what Americans want from our leaders but don’t get by Benjamin I. Page and Marshall M.
Bouton
2006  Soldiers to citizens : the G. I. Bill and the making of the greatest generation by Suzanne Metler; Inequality and prosperity : social Europe vs. liberal America by Jonas Pontusson
2005  After Brown : the rise and retreat of school desegregation by Charles T. Clotfelter; Perilous times : free speech in wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the war on terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone
2004  Democracy defended by Gerry Mackie; Corporate warriors : the rise of the privatized military industry by Peter W. Singer
2003  Dividing lines : the politics of immigration control in America by Daniel J. Tichenor
2002  The forging of bureaucratic autonomy : reputations, networks, and policy innovation in executive agencies, 1862-1928 by Daniel Carpenter
2001  Presidents, parties, and the state : a party system perspective on Democratic regulatory choice, 1884-1936 by Scott C. James
2000  No equal justice : race and class in the American criminal justice system by David Cole
1999  Dividing citizens : gender and federalism in New Deal public policy by Suzanne Mettler
1998  Reaching beyond race by Paul M. Sniderman and Edward G. Carmines
1997  Down from bureaucracy : the ambiguity of privatization and empowerment by Joel F. Handler
1996  Why parties? : the origin and transformation of political parties in America by John H. Aldrich
1995  Dismantling the welfare state? : Reagan, Thatcher, and the politics of retrenchment by Paul Pierson
1994  The rebirth of urban democracy by Jeffrey M. Berry, Kent E. Portney, and Ken Thomson
1993  The administrative Presidency revisited : public lands, the BLM and the Reagan Revolution by Robert F. Durant
1992  The logic of delegation : congressional parties and the appropriations process by D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins
1991  The democratic wish : popular participation and the limits of American government by James A. Morone (Rev. ed. (1998) here)
1990  The new politics of pornography by Donald A. Downs; Issue evolution : race and the transformation of American politics by Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson
1989  American federalism and public policy : how the system works by Thomas J. Anton
1988  Political ethics and public office by Dennis F. Thompson
1987  American trade politics : system under stress by I.M. Destler; Why we lost the ERA by Jane J. Mansbridge
1986  Economic statecraft by David A. Baldwin
1985  Protest is not enough : the struggle of blacks and Hispanics for equality in urban politics by Rufus P. Browning, Dale Rogers Marshall, and David H. Tabb
1984  Technologies of freedom by Ithiel de Sola Pool
1983  Dilemmas of pluralist democracy : autonomy vs. control by Robert A. Dahl; The rise and decline of nations : economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities by Mancur Olson
1982  The regulation of natural gas : policy and politics, 1938-1978 by M. Elizabeth Sanders
1981  Money in congressional elections by Gary C. Jacobson; Street-level bureaucracy : dilemmas of the individual in public services by Michael Lipsky
1980  Policymaking for social security by Martha Derthick
1979  Political control of the economy by Edward R. Tufte
1978  Ecology and the politics of scarcity : prologue to a political theory of the steady state by William Ophuls
1977  School politics, Chicago style by Paul E. Peterson
1976  Comparative public policy : the politics of social choice in Europe and America by Arnold J. Heidenheimer, Hugh Heclo, and Carolyn Teich Adams
1975  No award given
1974  America and the world political economy : Atlantic dreams and national realities by David P. Calleo and Benjamin M. Rowland
1973  Participation in America : political democracy and social equality by Norman H. Nie and Sidney Verba
1972  Systematic thinking for social action by Alice M. Rivlin
1971  What price vigilance? The burdens of national defense by Bruce M. Russett

This award is for the author of a first book in any field of political science that shows promise of having a substantive impact on the discipline, regardless of method, specific focus of inquiry, or approach to subject. For more information about the American Political Science Association, sponsor of this award, click American Political Science Association.

2022  Nowhere to Run: Race, Gender, and Immigration in American Elections by Christian Dyogi Philips
2021  The political life of an epidemic : cholera, crisis and citizenship in Zimbabwe by Simukai Chigudu
2020  Bending the rules : procedural politicking in the bureaucracy by Rachel Augustine Potter
2019  Spending to win : political institutions, economic geography, and government subsidies by Stephanie J. Rickard
2018  Trading barriers : immigration and the remaking of globalization by Margaret E. Peters.
2017  Rape during civil war by Dara Kay Cohen
2016  Between samaritans and states : the political ethics of humanitarian INGOs by Jennifer Rubenstein

The Benjamin E. Lippincott Award is given every other year for a work of exceptional quality by a living political theorist that is still considered significant after a time span of at least 15 years since the original publication. For more information about the American Political Science Association, sponsor of this award, click American Political Science Association.

2022  Beyond adversary democracy by Jane Mansbridge
2021  Racial contract by Charles W. Mills
2019  Republicanism : a theory of freedom and government by Philip Pettit
2017  Blacks and social justice by Bernard Boxill (Rev. ed. (1992) here)
2015  Seeing like a state : how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed by James C. Scott
2013  Sources of the self : the making of the modern identity by Charles Taylor
2011  After virtue : a study in moral theory by Alasdair MacIntyre
2009  Structural transformation of the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas; Social choice and individual values by Kenneth J. Arrow
2007  An economic theory of democracy by Anthony Downs
2005  The sexual contract by Carole Pateman
2003  The passions and the interests : political arguments for capitalism before its triumph by Albert O. Hirschman
2001  Foundations of modern political thought by Quentin Skinner
1999  The terms of political discourse by William E. Connolly (3d ed. (1993) here)
1997  The concept of representation by Hanna F. Pitkin
1995  Politics and markets : the world's political economic systems by Charles E. Lindblom
1993  The Machiavellian moment : Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition by J. G. A. Pocock
1991  The revolution of the saints : a study in the origins of radical politics by Michael Walzer
1989  A preface to democratic theory by Robert A. Dahl
1987  A theory of justice by John Rawls
1985  Politics and vision : continuity and innovation in Western political thought by Sheldon Wolin

(The award was changed to a biennial basis after 1984)

1984  Collected essays on political theory dating from 1939 through 1969 by Sir Isaiah Berlin
1983  The theory of committees and elections by Duncan Black
1982  Experience and its modes, and two essays, "The voice of poetry" and his Introduction to Hobbes' Leviathan by Michael Oakeshott
1981  The second sex by Simone de Beauvoir
1980  The concept of law by H. L. A. Hart
1979  The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke by C. B. Macpherson
1978  The new science of politics : an introduction, and Order and history by Eric Voegelin
1977  The liberal tradition in America : an interpretation of American political thought since the Revolution by Louis Hartz
1976  The open society and its enemies by Karl Popper (Rev. ed. (1950) here) (4th red. ed. (1963) here)
1975  The human condition by Hannah Arendt

The Victoria Schuck award is given each year for the best book published the previous year on women and politics. For more information about the American Political Science Association, sponsor of this award, click American Political Science Association.

2022  The partisan gap: why Democratic women get elected but Republican women don't by Laurel Elder
2021  A century of votes for women : American elections since suffrage by Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder
2020  The inclusion calculation : why men appropriate women's representation by Melody Ellis Valdini
2019  Just responsibility : a human rights theory of global justice by Brooke A. Ackerly
2018  No shortcut to change : an unlikely path to a more gender-equitable world by Kara Ellerby
2017  Counting women's ballots : female voters from suffrage to through the New Deal by J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht
2016  The beginning and end of rape : confronting sexual violence in Native America by Sarah Deer
2015  Defying convention : U.S. Resistance to the U.N. treaty on women's rights by Lisa Baldez
2014  He runs, she runs : why gender stereotypes do not harm women candidates by Deborah Jordan Brooks
2013  Varieties of feminism : German gender politics in global perspective by Myra Marx Feree
2012  When protest makes policy : how social movements represent disadvantaged groups by S. Laurel Weldon
2011  Women, work, and politics : the political economy of gender inequality by Torben Iversen and Frances Rosenbluth
2010  Quotas for women in politics : gender and candidate selection reform worldwide by Mona Lena Krook
2009  In an abusive state : how neoliberalism appropriated the feminist movement against sexual violence by Kristin Bumiller
2008  Engendering transitions : women's mobilization, institutions, and gender outcomes by Georgina Waylen; Welfare reform and sexual regulation by Anna Marie Smith
2007  Women's organizations and democracy in South Africa : contesting authority by Shireen Hassim; The politics of sexual harassment : a comparative study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany by Kathrin S. Zippel
2006  Globalizing women : transnational feminist networks by Valentine M. Moghadam
2005  Politics of piety : the Islamic Revival and the feminist subject by Saba Mahmood
2004  The subject of liberty : toward a feminist theory of freedom by Nancy J. Hirschmann
2003  Gendering government : feminist engagement with the state in Australia and Canada by Louise A. Chappell
2002  The private roots of public action : gender, equality, and political participation by Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Nancy Burns; War and gender : how gender shapes the war system and vice versa by Joshua S. Goldstein
2001  Is the fetus a person? : a comparison of policies across the fifty states by Jean Reith Schroedel; Women & politics in Uganda by Aili Mari Tripp
2000  Our lives before the law : constructing a feminist jurisprudence by Judith A. Baer
1999  Faithful and fearless : moving feminist protest inside the church and military by Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
1998  Dislocating cultures : identities, traditions, and Third-World feminism by Uma Narayan
1997  After suffrage : women in partisan and electoral politics before the New Deal by Kristi Anderson
1996  The wages of motherhood : inequality in the welfare state, 1917-1942 by Gwendolyn Mink
1995  Women and politics worldwide by Barbara J. Nelson and Najma Chowdhury
1994  At women's expense : state power and the politics of fetal rights by Cynthia R. Daniels
1993  A vindication of political virtue : the political theory of Mary Wollstonecraft by Virginia Sapiro
1992  Segregated sisterhood : racism and the politics of American feminism by Nancy Caraway; Engendering democracy by Anne Phillips
1991  Sex, gender, and the politics of ERA : a state and the nation by Donald G. Mathews; Justice and the politics of difference by Iris M. Young
1990  Justice, gender and the family by Susan Moller Okin; Arms and the enlisted woman by Judith Stiehm
1989  The female body and the law by Zillah R. Eisenstein; The sexual contract by Carole Pateman
1988  Women of the new right by Rebecca E. Klatch; Why we lost the ERA by Jane Mansbridge

In 2021, APSA will present the APSA Best Book Award in lieu of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award. In 2020, the APSA Council approved changing the name of the Wilson Award as well as the creation of an ad-hoc committee to determine the new name. The award criteria will remain the same – honoring the best book on government, politics, or international affairs. For more information about the American Political Science Association, sponsor of this award, click American Political Science Association.

2022  Winners and Losers: The Psychology of Foreign Trade by Diana C. Mutz
2022  Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy by Cigdem V. Sirin, Nicholas A. Valentino, and Jose D. Villalobos
2021  Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior by Ismail K. White and Chryl Nicole Laird
2020  Good enough for government work : the public reputation crisis in America (and what we can do to fix it) by Amy E. Lerman
2019  Poor representation : Congress and the politics of poverty in the United States by Kristina Miler
2018  Conservative parties and the birth of democracy by Daniel Ziblatt
2017  Racial realignment : the transformation of American literature, 1932-1965 by Eric Schickler
2016  How solidarity works for welfare : subnationalism and social development in India by Prerna Singh
2015  Inequality and democratization : an elite-competition approach by Ben Ansell and David Samuels
2014  Fear itself : the New Deal and the origins of our time by Ira Katznelson; The girls of Atomic City : the untold story of the women who helped win World War II by Denise Kiernan
2013  Affluence and influence : economic inequality and political power in America by Martin Gilens
2012  Why civil resistance works : the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan
2011  American grace : how religion divides and unites us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell
2010  Mobilizing for human rights : international law in domestic politics by Beth A. Simmons
2009  The legacies of law : long-run consequences of legal development in South Africa, 1652-2000 by Jens Meierhenrich
2008  Nuclear logics : contrasting paths in East Asia and the Middle East by Etel Solingen
2007  Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
2006  Expert political judgment : how good is it? how can we know? by Philip E. Tetlock
2005  How institutions evolve : the political economy of skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan by Kathleen Thelan; Votes and violence : electoral competition and ethnic riots in India by Steven I. Wilkinson
2004  The purpose of intervention : changing beliefs about the use of force by Martha Finnemore
2003  Nationalist mobilization and the collapse of the Soviet State by Mark Beissinger
2002  The race card : campaign strategy, implicit messages, and the norm of equality by Tali Mendelberg
2001  Democracy and development : political institutions and well-being in the world, 1950-1990 by Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi
2000  Honor, symbols, and war by Barry O'Neill
1999  Faces of inequality : social diversity in American politics by Rodney Hero
1998  Making votes count : strategic coordination in the world's electoral systems by Gary W. Cox
1997  Education and democratic citizenship in America by Jane Junn, Norman Nie, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry
1996  The radical right in Western Europe : a comparative analysis by Herbert Kitschelt
1995  Who adjusts? : domestic sources of foreign economic policy during the interwar years by Beth A. Simmons
1994  Black faces, black interests : the representation of African Americans in Congress by Carol M. Swain
1993  Protecting soldiers and mothers : the political origins of social policy in the United States by Theda Skocpol
1992  Reasoning and choice : explorations in political psychology by Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock
1991  Inquiry and change : the troubled attempt to understand and shape society by Charles E. Lindblom
1990  Democracy and its critics by Robert A. Dahl
1989  Presidential primaries and the dynamics of public choice by Larry Bartels
1988  The political economy of international relations by Robert Gilpin
1987  Political representation in France by Philip E. Converse and Roy Pierce; Governing the economy : the politics of state intervention in Britain and France by Peter Hall
1986  Small states in world markets : industrial policy in Europe by Peter Katzenstein
1985  The sources of military doctrine : France, Britain, and Germany between the world wars by Barry R. Posen
1984  Stillborn republic : social coalitions and party strategies in Greece, 1922-1936 by George Th. Mavrogordatos
1983  Contemporary democracies : participation, stability, and violence by G. Bingham Powell
1982  City limits by Paul E. Peterson
1981  Power and powerlessness : quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley by John P. Gaventa
1980  The irony of Vietnam : the system worked by Leslie H. Gelb with Richard K. Betts
1979  Home style : House Members in their districts by Richard F. Fenno, Jr.
1978  Politics and markets : the world's political economic systems by Charles E. Lindblom
1977  The changing American voter by Norman H. Nie, Sidney Verba, and John R. Petrocik
1976  Health care politics : ideological and interest group barriers to reform by Robert A. Alford
1975  Modern social politics in Britain and Sweden : from relief to income maintenance by Hugh Heclo
1974  Communism in Korea by Robert A. Scalapino and Chong-sik Lee
1973  The foreign policy system of Israel; setting, images, process by Michael Brecher
1972  Choice and the politics of allocation : a developmental theory by David E. Apter
1971  Why men rebel by Ted Robert Gurr
1970  Political change in Britain : forces shaping electoral choice by David Butler and Donald E. Stokes (2d ed. (1975) here)
1969  Democratic representation; reapportionment in law and politics by Robert G. Dixon, Jr.
1968  Parliament, parties, and society in France, 1946-1958 by Duncan MacRae, Jr.
1967  Social origins of dictatorship and democracy; lord and peasant in the making of the modern world by Barrington Moore, Jr.
1966  British politics in the collectivist age by Samuel H. Beer
1965  The rulers and the ruled; political power and impotence in American communities by Robert E. Agger, Daniel Goldrich, and Bert E. Swanson; Political parties; a behavioral analysis by Samuel J. Eldersveld
1964  American business and public policy; the politics of foreign trade by Raymond A. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Anthony Lewis Dexter
1963  Power and international relations by Inis L. Claude, jr.
1962  Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city by Robert A. Dahl
1961  Presidential power : the politics of leadership by Richard Neustadt (1976 ed.) (1980 ed.) (1990 ed.)
1960  Political theory; the foundations of twentieth-century political thought by Arnold Brecht
1959  The structure of freedom by Christian Bay; Nigeria : background to nationalism by James S. Coleman
1958  Nuclear weapons and foreign policy by Henry A. Kissinger; The democratic Roosevelt; a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt by Rexford G. Tugwell
1957  Roosevelt : the lion and the fox by James MacGregor Burns
1956  The liberal tradition in America; an interpretation of American political thought since the Revolution by Louis Hartz
1955  Prejudice, war, and the Constitution by Jacobus ten Broek, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson
1954  The legislative struggle, a study in social combat by Bertram M. Gross
1953  Seedtime of the Republic; the origin of the American tradition of political liberty by Clinton Rossiter
1952  The future of American politics by Samuel Lubell (3d ed. (1965) here)
1951  Political realism and political idealism. a study in theories and realities by John B. Herz
1950  Congress makes a law; the story behind the employment act of 1946 by Stephen K. Bailey
1949  Southern politics in State and Nation by V. O. Key
1948  The Federalists : a study in administrative history by Leonard D. White
1947  The web of government by Robert M. MacIver (Rev. ed. (1966) here)