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For the best book published in the previous calendar year on women and politics.         

Award Committee: R. Amy Elman, Chair, Kalamazoo College; Joshua S. Goldstein, American University; Laura R. Woliver, University of South Carolina

Co-Recipient: Dr. Shireen Hassim, University of Witwatersand

Title: Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)

Co-Recipient: Dr. Kathrin S. Zippel, Northeastern University

Title: The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Citation:  It is our pleasure to extend the Victoria Schuck award to both Shireen Hassim and Kathrin S. Zippel. This year marks a record in the number of nominations for this coveted prize for scholarship on women and politics. Notably, both of these works not only unite several sub-fields within the discipline but also move beyond political science into interdisciplinary scholarship.

In a remarkable examination of decades of mobilization—in country, in exile, and within transnational social movements—Shireen Hassim’s Women’s Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority illuminates the dynamics of gender, race, social class, and citizenship within that country’s freedom movements.  She draws on a vast multidisciplinary knowledge of the literature on social movements, dissent, gender politics, and democratic theory to help us appreciate the generations of people who struggled for justice and democracy in South Africa.  Her multi-layered methods examine regime and insurgent levels of activity and the often-overlooked power dynamics of “motherism.” As women in beleaguered townships demanded everyday necessities, often “unspectacular concerns” such as drinking water, sewage systems, schools, and public transportation, they pressured government officials, maintained community ties, and challenged the notion that the women and their children and elderly relatives could simply be ignored, forgotten, and kept oppressed. The women and their entire families redefined what a citizen was and transformed South Africa. Hassim’s study unites several sub-fields of political science including social movements, comparative politics, women and politics, and democratic theory.

With the publication of The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany, Kathrin S. Zippel has made a stunning contribution to the discipline's understanding of sexual inequality, transnational politics, social movements, law, and public policy.  This extensively researched and richly detailed comparative analysis opens with an account of the politicization of workplace sexual harassment in the US, where sexual harassment law was created.  Zippel then addresses the cases of the European Union and Germany. In Europe, it was at the EU level (rather than within any of the member states) that women had their first successes in passing measures against this abuse.  What inspired these reforms?  How have they evolved and, not least, why do crucial differences and outcomes persist among states and supranational organizations despite surveys that reveal that sexual harassment is pervasive on both continents?  For those wondering whether cultural factors, higher rates of women's workforce participation, or stronger women's and/or labor movements explain the greater responsiveness of some states and transnational actors, this work offers a refreshing corrective concerning common assumptions.  Zippel's work is a must-read for comparativists, scholars of EU politics, social movements, public policy, and political culture.