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For the best political science publication in 2007 in the field of U.S. national policy.

Award Committee: Hanes Walton, Jr., University of Michigan; Chair: Ann O’M Bowman, University of South Carolina; Margaret Weir, University of California, Berkeley

Recipient: Dara Z. Strolovitch, University of Minnesota

Book: Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

Citation: This is a superb and very distinguished new work in U.S. national policy. Dara Z. Strolovitch’s pioneering study focuses on how advocacy interest groups with different marginalized populations within the same interest group organization prioritize both advocacy and representation of these different subgroups in their constituencies. To address this research problem, this study, using innovative theoretical and methodological techniques along with unique data generates the empirical finding “that organizations apply a double standard when it comes to the levels of energy that they devote to issues affecting differently situated subgroups in their own constituencies.” Put differently, “issues affecting advantaged subgroups are given disproportionately high levels of attention, whereas issues affecting disadvantaged subgroups are given disproportionately low levels.” Yet, the leaders and officers of these interest groups organizations conceive of advocacy as representation for those significantly disadvantaged subgroups within the organizations and speaks out quite forcefully for them while simultaneously giving the greatest effort to the “advantaged subgroups of their constituencies.”  Simply put, this book offers a pathbreaking analysis and set of findings for the discipline and national public policy aimed at the intersectionally disadvantaged in affirmative advocacy interest group demands. It is bold, and rich as well as quite rewarding original research.