2006 Gladys M. Kammerer Award

For best political science publication in 2005 in the field of U.S. national policy.

Award Committee: Barbara Sinclair, University of California, Los Angeles, Chair; Desmond King, Oxford University; Daniel J. Tichenor, Rutgers University

Co-Recipient: Jonas Pontusson, Princeton University

Book: Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America (A Century Foundation Book, Cornell University Press)

Co-Recipient: Suzanne Mettler, Syracuse University

Book: Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford University Press)

Citation: Professor Pontusson's Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America is a superb empirical comparative study of the presumed trade-off between equality and economic growth. Combining methods of quantitative analysis with careful case studies, Pontusson shows that the trade-off is not as strict or as simple as much economic theory argues. Neither the Anglo-American liberal market economies/polities nor the European social market economies/polities have all the answers; each can learn something for the other model, and, further, finer-grained institutional features have major effects on the extent to which equality and economic growth can be reconciled. For Americans disturbed with the growing inequality in our society, this book offers instructive policy lessons as well as the hope that severe inequality is not a necessary price we much pay for continued prosperity.

Citation: Professor Mettler's Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation is an outstanding scholarly work in the relatively new study of policy feedback effects. Using a diversity of methods and data sources, Mettler shows how the G.I. Bill of Rights not only contributed to the development of a broad middle class in post-war America but also generated an unusually high level of civic and political involvement among its beneficiaries. "The G. I. Bill of Rights stands as a premier example of how government can, thorough public policy, provide social opportunity, and at the same time, promote active citizenship, making American more democratic," Mettler writes. Policy design and implementation were important in bringing about these effects. Readily accessible and smoothly administered, an inclusive and earned benefit for all World War II soldiers, the G. I. Bill conveyed to returning soldiers that their country and their government valued them and they in turn gave even more back as citizens.