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Gabriel A. Almond Award 

Nominations for the 2024 APSA Awards have closed.



The Almond Award honors the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics. 

The award was created in recognition of Dr. Gabriel Almond's contributions to the discipline, profession, and Association.  He was a long time faculty member at Stanford University and former APSA President (1966).  Almond's scholarly work contributed directly to the development of theory in comparative politics and brought together work on the developing areas and Western Europe that prevented splintering into an array of disparate areas studies.  The award is presented at the APSA Annual Meeting and carries a cash prize of $750. 



Nomination Information

  • Eligibility: Nominees do not have to be members of APSA, affiliated with an institution in the United States, or an American citizen in order to be considered for an award.

    Dissertations must have been successfully defended within the previous two calendar years (dissertations for the 2023 award must be defended in 2021 or 2022).

    Self-nominations are accepted. Nominations from non-PhD departments and institutions are also welcome if the nominee is currently employed there.

    APSA will accept only one nomination for the Almond Award per school or political science department.

Gabriel A. Almond Award Committee


Chair: Dr. Hillel David Soifer
Temple University
hsoifer@temple.edu

Sarah L. Henderson
Oregon State University
sarah.henderson@oregonstate.edu

Professor Lynette H. Ong
University of Toronto
Lynette.Ong@utoronto.ca

Year Recipient Dissertation Institution

2023

Nicholas Kuipers

Meritocracy Reconsidered: The Politics of Civil Service Recruitment

University of California, Berkeley

2022

Anna Zhang

Go West, Young Han: Internal Migration as a Strategy of Counterinsurgency

Stanford University

2021

David Peyton

Property Security in the Midst of Insecurity: Wealth, Violence, and Institutional Stasis in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Northwestern University

2021

Chantal Berman

Protest, Social Policy, and Political Regimes

Princeton University

2020

Rachel A. Schwartz

Civil War, Institutional Change, and the Criminalization of the State in Central America

University of Wisconsin-Madison

2019

Andreas Wiedemann

Indebted Societies: Modern Labor Markets, Social Policy, and Everyday Borrowing

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2018

David Szakonyi

Renting Elected Office: Why Businesspeople Become Politicians in Russia

Columbia University

2017

Jeremy Ferwerda

The Politics of Proximity: Local Redistribution in Developed Democracies

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2016

Dawn Teele

The Logic of Women's Enfranchisement: A Comparative Study of the United States, France and the United Kingdom

Yale University

2015

Adam Auerbach

Demanding Development: Democracy, Community Governance, and Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums

University of Wisconsin-Madison

2014

Regina Bateson

Order and Violence in Postwar Guatemala

Princeton University

2013

Evgeny Finkel

Victims’ Politics: Jewish Behavior during the Holocaust

University of Wisconsin, Madison

2013

Gwyneth McClendon

The Politics of Envy and Esteem in Two Democracies

Princeton University

2012

Noam Lupu

Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilutions and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America

Princeton University

2011

Brian Min

Democracy and Light: Public Service Provision in the Developing World

University of California, Los Angeles

2010

Tariq Thachil

The Saffron Wave Meets the Silent Revolution: Why the Poor Vote for Hindu Nationalism in India

Cornell University

2010

Maya Tudor

Twin Births, Divergent Democracies: the Social and Institutional Origins of Regime Outcomes in India and Pakistan, 1920-1958

Princeton University

2009

Lisa A. Blaydes

Competition Without Democracy: Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt

University of California, Los Angeles

2008

Rafaela Mirjam Dancygier

Immigration and Conflict

Yale University

2007

Emmanuel J. Teitelbaum

Mobilizing Restraint: Unions and the Politics of Economic Development in South Asia

Cornell University

2006

Matthew Adam Kocher

Human Ecology and Civil War

University of Chicago

2005

Edmund James Malesky

At Provincial Gates: The Impact of Locally Concentrated Foreign Direct Investment on Provincial Autonomy and Economic Reform

University of California, San Diego

2004

Daniel F. Ziblatt

Constructing a Federal State: Political Development, Path Dependence, and the Origins of Federalism, 1815-1871

University of California, Berkeley

2003

Julia Lynch

The Age of Welfare: Citizens, Clients, and Generations in the Development of the Welfare State

University of California, Berkeley

2002

Evan S. Lieberman

Payment for Privilege? Race and Space in the Politics of Taxation in Brazil and South Africa

University of California, Berkeley

2001

Jonathan Hiskey

Does Democracy Matter? Electoral Competition and Local Development in Mexico

University of Pittsburgh

2000

Anna M. Grzymala-Busse

Redeeming the Past: The Regeneration of the Communist Successor Parties in East and Central Europe after 1989

Harvard University

1999

Daniel Posner

The Institutional Origins of Ethnic Politics in Zambia

Harvard University

1998

Beatriz Magaloni

The Dynamics of Dominant Party Decline: The Mexican Transition to Multipartyism

Duke University

1998

James Mahoney

Radical, Reformist, and Aborted Liberalism: Origins of National Regimes in Central America

University of California, Berkeley

1997

Michael Orenstein

Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe

Yale University

1996

Torben Iverson

Contested Economic Institutions: The Politics of Macro-Economics and Wage Bargaining in Organized Capitalism

Duke University

1995

Jonah Levy

Tocqueville's Revenge: Dilemmas of Institutional Reform in Post-Dirigiste France

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1994

Daniel Goldhagen

The Nazi Executioners: A Study of Their Behavior and the Causation of Genocide

Harvard University

1993

Daniel M. Green

Structural Study of PNDC Ghana and the District Assembly Decentralization Policy

Indiana University

1992

Felipe Aguero

The Assertion of Civil Supremacy in Post-Authoritarian Contexts: Spain in Comparative Perspectives

Duke University

1991

Michael Barnett

War Preparation and the Restructuring of the State-Society Relations: Israel and Egypt in Comparative Perspective

University of Minnesota

1990

Brian M. Downing

The Military Revolution and Political Change in Early Modern Europe

University of Chicago

1989

Jeffrey Herbst

Policy Formulation and Implementation in Zimbabwe: Understanding State Autonomy and the Focus of Decision-Making

Yale University

1989

Sven Steinmo

Taxes, Institutions and the Mobilization of Bias: The Political Economy of Taxation in Britain, Sweden and the United States

University of California, Berkeley

1988

David Friedman

The Misunderstood Miracle: Politics and the Development of a Hybrid Economy in Japan

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1987

James Tong

Collective Violence in a Pre-modern Society: Rebellions and Banditry in the Ming Dynasty (1364-1644)

University of Michigan

1986

Michael Loriaux

International Change and Political Adaptation: The French Overdraft Economy in the Seventies

Princeton University

1985

David Pion-Berlin

Ideas as Predictors: A Comparative Study of Coercion in Peru and Argentina

University of Denver

1984

Kaare Strom

Minority Government and Majority Rule

Stanford University

1983

Miriam A. Golden

Austerity and Its Opposition: Italian Working Class Politics in the 1970s

Cornell University

1982

David G. Becker

The New Bourgeoisie and the Limits of Dependency: The Social and Political Impact of the Industry in Peru since 1968

University of California, Los Angeles

1981

Thomas M. Callaghy

State Formation and Absolutism in Comparative Perspective: Seventeenth-Century France and Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire

University of California, Berkeley

1980

Steven Jay Kelman

Regulating Job Safety and Health: A Comparison of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Swedish Worker Protection Board

Harvard University

1979

Anne Louise Potter

Political Institutions, Political Decay and the Argentine Crisis of 1930

Stanford University

1979

John T. S. Keeler

The Politics of Official Unionism in French Agriculture, 1958-1976

Harvard University

1978

Peter H. Lemieux

The Liberal Party and British Political Change, 1955-74

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1977

Kenneth Wald

Patterns of English Voter Alignment since 1885

Washington University

1972

Paul M. Sniderman

Personality and Democratic Politics: Correlates of Self-Esteem

University of California, Berkeley


We are continually grateful for the contributions from APSA members and friends that make our work possible. Your donation helps continue the Almond Award for future scholars researching comparative politics. Thank you for your support of APSA and scholars across the discipline.


Donate now to Gabriel A. Almond Award Fund

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