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2007 Gabriel A. Almond Award
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2007 Gabriel A. Almond AwardThe Gabriel A. Almond Award is for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics.
Award Committee: Carol Hager, Chair, Bryn Mawr College; David Brown, University of Colorado; Kaare Strom, University of California, San Diego
Recipient: Emmanuel J. Teitelbaum, The George Washington University
Dissertation Title: “Mobilizing Restraint: Unions and the Politics of Economic Development in South Asia”
Dissertation Chair: Ronald Herring, Cornell University
Citation: We are very pleased to present the Gabriel A. Almond Award for the Best Dissertation in Comparative Politics completed in 2006 and 2007 to Emmanuel J. Teitelbaum for “Mobilizing Restraint: Unions and the Politics of Economic Development in South Asia.” Teitelbaum makes an original contribution on an issue of unquestionable importance in the political economy of development. His thesis challenges the conventional wisdom that labor repression is necessary for successful economic development. He examines the relationship between political incorporation and union behavior in several South Asian cases. He finds that unions that are affiliated with major political parties are more restrained in their behavior than non-affiliated unions. They respond to the effects of market competitions by discouraging protest and encouraging institutionalized forms of grievance resolution. Non-affiliated unions, on the other hand, tend to favor greater militancy against employers and more extreme and violent forms of protest. Teitelbaum concludes that voluntary party-union ties may facilitate economic reform and over time stabilize labor-capital relations in what one of his advisors calls “a virtuous spiral ending in social peace.” This finding could have a profound effect on the way we think about issues of participation and economic reform in the developing world.
The members of the award committee are particularly impressed with Teitelbaum’s research design, which highlights his impressive quantitative and qualitative skills. Teitelbaum successfully combines game-theoretic analysis with multi-method empirical research in four regions of South Asia: Sri Lanka and the Indian states of Maharshtra, Kerala and West Bengal. As his nominating letter notes, these data were largely unavailable from any other source; thus, Teitelbaum is making an original contribution to knowledge. The combination of sophisticated theoretical argument and expertly executed empirical analysis makes this dissertation stand out. Teitelbaum has made us think in a new way about a crucially important issue in comparative politics. He is a most deserving recipient of the Almond Award.
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