2005 Harold D. Lasswell Award

For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in 2003 or 2004 in the field of policy studies.

Committee: Duane Swank, Marquette University, Chair; Cynthia Daniels, Rutgers University; Michael Goldfield, Wayne State University.

Co-Recipient: Esther N. Mwangi, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

Dissertation; "Institutional Change and Politics: The Transformation of Property Rights in Kenya's Maasailand." (Indiana University; Dissertation Committee Chair: Professor Elinor Ostrom).

Dissertation Chair: Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University
 
Co-Recipient: Thaddeus M. Williamson, University of Richmond

Dissertation: "Sprawl, Justice and Citizenship: A Philosophical and Empirical Inquiry."

Dissertation Chair: Michael Sandel, Harvard University

(Mwangi)
Citation: Esther Mwangi's fascinating dissertation examines the causes and consequences of the individualization of property rights in Kenya’s Maasailand. The central problem of the dissertation is to explain why the Maasai herders supported a fundamental transformation in heretofore communal property rights institutions. In answering this question, Mwangi applies institutional and property rights theories and a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to persuasively argue that the Maasai herders’ choice of privatization of property rights was a rational response to changes in relative land prices, was embedded in and shaped by extant and prior institutional frameworks and cultural norms, and was fundamentally influenced by power relationships and politics at multiple levels of decision making from the collective ranch to the national state.

 Overall, the dissertation is an exemplary demonstration of the application of several streams of institutional and comparative theory, research and method. It is indeed an impressive example of the command and application of the theories and methods of policy analysis to an important case from the developing world; the dissertation offers many lessons for academic analysts and practitioners in institutional building and development policy in African and beyond.

(Williamson)
Citation: Thaddeus Williamson’s dissertation is an impressively innovative use of utilitarian, liberal egalitarian, and civic republican political thought to structure an empirical analysis of the policy problems associated with urban sprawl. Williamson employs these normative theoretical perspectives to highlight fundamental local, regional, and national policy problems likely to be produced by sprawl - for instance, adverse cost-benefit outcomes, socioeconomic inequalities, and impairments of civic virtue such as low political engagement and participation. A massive amount of data from recent survey research and supplementary sources are used to empirically assess theoretically grounded claims made about the policy problems of sprawl. Williamson produces a wealth of potentially important findings about the impact of sprawl on individual utility, equality, and political participation; in the end, Williamson ultimately returns to the normative theories to argue that the principles, predictions, and prescriptions of civic republicanism give us the most leverage for analysis and policy making in the case of urban sprawl.

 Overall, this dissertation demonstrates a highly laudable command and application of several literatures - indeed an impressive command of normative political theory, general and urban public policy, and several cognate fields such as urban planning. Of particular note is Williamson’s real innovation in the analysis of practical policy issues through the systematic use of normative political thought. Moreover, the dissertation’s empirical analysis is expertly crafted and executed, and the author shows an impressive facility with state-of-the-art survey research and econometric statistical methods.  This dissertation, like that of the co-winner Esther Mwangi, represents the best in the innovative application of the theories and methods of policy analysis to an important public policy problem. And, like the Mwangi dissertation, insights and lessons for academics and policy makers abound.