We conducted a survey of the most prestigious academic awards under the oversight of political science associations in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia. We drew on information on the recipients of the awards available on these associations’ websites. We looked up details on recipients with unisex or foreign names, including searching university websites. This is not an exhaustive audit of all the awards granted. We focused on awards that had a research emphasis, covering book or articles published for young political scientists and lifetime awards. The broader context of this audit is the growing attention being given to the role of women in the discipline of political science, with, inter alia, the International Political Science Association (IPSA) conducting regular monitoring audits on the status of women and the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession taking steps to monitor progress. There is great diversity in these awards between national associations, making direct comparisons challenging. Overall, they suggest that women remain marginal as recipients of the awards that recognise lifetime achievements and are faring better in awards for dissertations. This reflects patterns of the presence of women in academia and their over-representation in lower and less prestigious ranks.
Australian Political Studies Association
The Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) recognises the contribution of work in the discipline of political studies through a variety of awards covering articles, books, doctoral dissertations and lifetime roles. The Mayer Journal Prize for the best article in the Australian Journal of Political Science has been awarded since 1999. Women make up 32 per cent of all winning authors. First awarded in 2009 the Henry Mayer Book Prize for Australian Politics celebrates the best book on Australian politics: women are 30 per cent of recipients. The prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award has been presented to 12 political scientists in recognition of their service to the Australian Political Studies Association. To date, Marian Sawer and Carol Johnson are the only woman to have been awarded this accolade. A more recent award, the Academic Leadership in Political Science Award, recognises inclusive and collaborative forms of leadership in the discipline and was a recommendation from the 2011 Australian Political Studies Association Workshop on the Advancement of Women in Political Science. With its focus on collaborative and inclusive work 50 per cent of political scientists awarded this prize have been women. Women account for more than 60 per cent of recipients of the APSA PhD Thesis Prize which has been awarded biennially since 2006.
Two APSA awards are named for women political scientists: the Carole Pateman Gender and Politics Book Prize and the Thelma Hunter Women and Politics PhD Thesis Prize. They recognise research on gender and/or women and politics and are awarded in alternate years, replacing the Women and Politics Prize which ran from 1982 to 2016. There is no requirement that entrants to these awards be women but only one man (in 1991) has received one.
Figure 1. Distribution of Australian Political Studies Association prizes and awards by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from APSA Awards (accessed January 2021).
Canadian Political Science Association
Since the 1990s the Canadian Political Science Association has seen a variety of academic awards and prizes emerge. These awards have covered book and article contributions and dissertations.
An audit of the distribution of awards highlights a persistent and significant gender gap in the most prestigious awards in the discipline. An example of this pattern is the Donald Smiley Prize which was first awarded to a woman in 2010. The Donald Smiley Prize recognises the best book in the area of government and politics in Canada. Only 11 per cent of recipients of this award have been women since its inaugural presentation in 1992. The Prize in International Relations was first awarded in 2009 to the best book in the area of international relations. The first woman to be awarded this accolade was Juliet Johnson in 2017 for her book Priest of Prosperity: How Central Bankers Transformed the Postcommunist World (Cornell University Press). The C.B. Macpherson Prize was first awarded in 1994 for the best book in political theory. Again only 21 per cent of all recipients have been women. These patterns are not replicated in the area of comparative politics. Over the short period of 10 years 86 per cent of all the CPSA Prize in Comparative Politics awards have gone to women. The John McMenemy Prize celebrates the best article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science and 36per cent of recipients have been women. Women are also better represented in awards that recognise contributions through dissertations. The Vincent Lemieux Prize is a biennial award that recognises the best thesis in the discipline of political science. It was first awarded in 1999 and women political scientists represent 33 per cent of all recipients. The most recent prize, established in 2014 is the Prix francophone de l’ACSP: it has been awarded three times, twice to a woman.
An important award is the Jill Vickers Prize for the best paper on gender and politics presented at the Canadian Political Science Association Conference. First awarded in 2004, this prize has had an important role in celebrating gender scholarship. Women have been 85 per cent of all recipients of this award.
Figure 2. Distribution of Canadian Political Science Association awards by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from CPSA Prizes (accessed January 2021).
United Kingdom Political Studies Association
The UK’s Political Studies Association has a range of academic awards and prizes covering contributions to the discipline, as well as books and articles. A survey of the distribution of these awards highlights the significant gender gap in views of academic excellence in the profession. For example, in a 2020 comparison of the distribution of two awards, women represented 26 per cent of all winners of the prestigious Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for lifetime contribution to the discipline, and 14 per cent of the Richard Rose Prize which was initiated in 2005 and celebrates the contribution of an early career scholar to the study of British politics. A recent prize, the Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achievement by a mid-career scholar was awarded in 2019 to a man and in 2020 to a woman
The prestigious Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for lifetime contribution to political studies was initiated in 2000, but first went to a woman – Joni Lovenduski – in 2013. Since then however it has recognised the work of three further women: Onora O’Neill, Anne Phillips, Pippa Norris and Vivien Lowndes. It was not awarded in 2018 or 2019. Another prestigious award is the W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize awarded since 1987 for the best book in the field of political science. The first woman awardee was Ruth Dixon who, with Christopher Hood, earned the 2016 Prize for their book, A Government That Worked Better and Cost Less? Evaluating Three Decades of Reform and Change in UK Central Government (Oxford University Press).
Three awards have recognised important journal contributions. The Harrison Prize, first awarded in 1994 for the best article published in Political Studies, has only gone to a woman in 15 per cent of cases in over two decades of existence. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations prize was first awarded in 2007 to the best article in this journal and 28 per cent of all awardees have been women. Women are faring better in the prize for the best article published in Politics, with women being 47 per cent of all recipients since the award’s establishment in 2004.
Figure 3. Distribution of Political Studies Association awards recognising lifetime, book and article contributions, by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from UK Political Studies Association (accessed January 2021). Changes to the PSA website since 2017 have resulted in inconsistent figures for recent years.
The UK Political Studies Association also celebrates the contribution of early career researchers with a range of awards for dissertations. For example, the Walter Bagehot Prize recognises the best dissertation in Government and Public Administration. Since it was first awarded in 1990, 31 per cent of all recipients have been women. The McDougall Fund Prize recognises dissertations that have made a contribution to the field of elections, electoral systems or representation and 30 per cent of recipients have been women. The Lord Bryce Prize celebrates contributions in the field of international relations and comparative studies. This award was first initiated in 1989, and 31 per cent recipients have been women. Finally, the Sir Ernest Barker Prize celebrates the best dissertation in political theory and women have been 38 per cent of the 32 recipients of the award since its establishment in 1989.
Figure 4. Distribution of Political Studies Association awards for best dissertations by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from UK Political Studies Association prizes(accessed January 2021).
American Political Science Association
Some of the most prestigious APSA awards celebrate research publications in journal articles and books. The Heinz Eulau prize, for example, is for the best article published in the American Political Science Review and Perspectives on Politics. An audit of the relative distribution of the Heinz Eulau prize shows that only one in four award recipients were women. The best scholarly work in political science on ethnic and cultural pluralism is celebrated by the Ralph Bunche Award. Around 31 per cent of all recipients of this award were women. The Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha prize for the best paper presented at the previous year's APSA annual meeting was first awarded in 1964. That women have represented a mere 15 per cent of all recipients is not surprising. Women have, however, represented over 30 per cent of all papergivers since 2005 – in 2008 they were 34.2 per cent of papergivers and 33.7 per cent of meeting chairpersons (Gruberg, 2009) – but still accounted for only 22 per cent of prize recipients.
An audit of book awards confirms a further gender gap in the distribution of awards in the political science discipline. The Benjamin E. Lippincott Award recognises work by a living political theorist that continues to remain significant 15 years after its original date of publication. While Hannah Arendt was the first recipient of this award in 1975 for her work, The Human Condition (The University of Chicago Press), women remain under represented with a mere 12 per cent of laureates being women. Another important award is the Gladys M. Kammerer Award which celebrates the best book in the field of US national policy and is one of the few awards named for a woman. Since 2004 21 books have received this award, with 9 women among the recipients and three of those women were co-authors with men. The Woodrow Wilson Award is given to the best book on government, politics, or international affairs. Women are 15 per cent of all recipients, however, since 1993, they represent 38 per cent of recipients.
Lifetime awards provide another important insight into what makes up ‘excellence’. The James Madison Award, awarded triennially since 1978, recognises an American political scientist who has made an important scholarly contribution to political science. The first woman to receive this accolade was Elinor Ostrom in 2005, who then went on to be the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009. An audit of the distribution of the Madison award shows that women remain a small proportion of those receiving recognition for excellence, representing a mere 13 per cent of all recipients. The Ithiel de Sola Pool Award and Lectureship established in 1995 celebrates scholars who have made important contributions to the areas of political theory, political behaviour, political communication, science and technology policy, and international affairs. A total of nine scholars have been awarded this accolade, of which only two are women. The John Gaus Award and Lectureship, first awarded in 1986, recognises a lifetime scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration. Just 17 per cent of all recipients of the John Gaus award have been women, though nearly half of recipients in the last decade have been women.
The gender gap appears to narrow when considering awards for contributions to professional associations. For example, women represent 29 per cent of recipients of the Frank J. Goodnow, an award that celebrates distinguished service to the profession and the American Political Science Association.
The Victoria Schuck Award was initiated in 1986 and is awarded for the best book on women and politics. Overseas political scientists are eligible to have their books considered. As expected, women dominate this award: only two men are among the recipients and they are both co-authors with women.
Figure 5. Distribution of American Political Science Association awards by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from APSA website (accessed January 2021).
APSA has established a variety of awards for doctoral dissertations in the last two decades. The E.E. Schattschneider prize, established in 1872, for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of American government. An audit of recipients since 2000 shows that 32 per cent of recipients have been women. Women perform better in the Merze Tate Award for dissertations in the field of international relations, law, and politics and in the Harold D. Lasswell prize for the best dissertation in the field of public policy, established in the early 2000s, with women representing 45 per cent and 47 per cent of all laureates. Women represented 40 per cent of all recipients of the Leonard D. White prize. Gender gaps remain significant in the William Anderson prize, established in 1977, for the best dissertation in federalism or intergovernmental relations, state and local politics. Women represent a mere 15 per cent of all recipients, and that figure only increases to 24 per cent if awards since 2000 are counted. In the Gabriel A. Almond Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics, established in 1972, women account for 24 per cent of recipients overall but that figure rises to 39 per cent since 2000. Similarly, in the Edward S. Corwin Prize for the best dissertation in the field of public law, the oldest prize established in 1964, women account for 25 per cent of awards overall but 41 per cent of awards since 2000. The Leo Strauss prize which celebrates the best dissertation in the field of political philosophy was established in 2001 and women represent 33 per cent of recipients to date.
Figure 6. Distribution of American Political Science Association dissertation awards by gender, 2020
Source: GESS researchers’ calculations, data collected from APSA website (accessed January 2020).
International Political Science Association (IPSA) gender monitoring
International professional organisations such as the International Political Science Association have played an important role in raising awareness of gender gaps and inequality in academia. In 2009 IPSA launched a gender monitoring system to audit the status of women in political science. The aim of this tracking system is to raise awareness of the under-representation of women, and contribute to a more equal discipline (Matonyte, Sawer & St-Laurent, 2012). Since then three reports (2011, 2013 and 2017) have been published.
One of the indicators monitored is women’s representation in leadership positions in national political science associations. The American Political Science Association had its first woman president in 1989 over eight decades from its foundation in 1903. Change has gathered some momentum and between 2000 and 2013 women represented over 42 per cent of all presidents. (Kindroos, et al., 2014). The Australian association saw its first woman president in 1975. In 2014, an IPSA report found that since its first woman president the Canadian Political Science Association had seen the election of seven women out of 80 presidents (Kindroos, et al., 2014).From 1998 the Australian Political Science Association has adopted a convention of alternating male and female presidents. In 2017, Australia reported 15 female presidents out of a total of 53 (Abu-Labeen, Cardinal, Sawer & St-Laurent, 2017).
Table 1. Date of first, and total number of, woman PSA presidents or chairs, 2017
Source: Abu-Labeen, Sawer & St-Laurent (2017, p. 9) IPSA – Gender Monitoring Report 2017.
Another area covered by IPSA’s gender monitoring reporting is the distribution of awards. The authors of the 2017 report note the effect that gender reporting has had on redressing historical imbalances in the gender distribution of awardees as well as in awards named for women. In the UK, for example, the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for lifetime contribution to political studies was not awarded to a woman until 2013, and has now been awarded to a woman for four years in a row. The UK PSA finally named an award for a woman in 2016 and added three more prizes named after women the following year. Similarly, the Irish PSA introduced its first prize named after a woman following their first gender audit in 2015.
IPSA awards its own suite of prizes, with varying representation of women among the recipients. The Ulrich Kloeti Award for exceptional contributions to research in the field of public policy, administration and institutions through a sustained career has only one woman among its seven recipients. The Karl Deutsch Award for outstanding cross-disciplinary research scholarship in the field of global politics also has only one woman among its nine recipients and the Meisel-Laponce Award for the best article published in International Political Science Review in the previous four years has only one woman among the three co-authored papers that have received the prize. The Juan Linz Prize for outstanding scholarship in the field of (comparative) political institutions has been awarded four times but not yet to a woman.
Of the two IPSA prizes for books women account for 29 per cent of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Prize (in the field of public policy and administration) which has been awarded since 2004. However, the APSA-IPSA Theodore J. Lowi First Book Award was first awarded in 2016 and all five recipients are women. Women are also 36 per cent of recipients of the Francesco Kjellberg Award for outstanding papers presented by new scholars and 30 per cent of Stein Rokkan Travel Grant Award recipients which assist graduate students whose academic institutions and professors have bestowed on them high academic honour and esteem. These grants have been made since 1982. The recently established Global South Award has been made four times, twice to women.
In 2000, IPSA launched the Wilma Rule award for the best congress paper on gender and politics. Eleven women have been recognised with this award.
Figure 7. Distribution of International Political Science Association awards by gender, 2017
Source: Researchers’ calculations, data collected from IPSA website(accessed January 2021).
References
Abu-Laban, Yasmeen, Sawer, Marian & St-Laurent, Mathieu, IPSA Gender and Diversity Monitoring Report 2017, Montreal: IPSA.
Martin Gruberg (2009). Participation by women in the 2008 APSA annual meeting. PS: Political Science & Politics, 42(1), 173-4.
Irmina Matonyte, Marian Sawer & Mathieu St-Laurent (2012). IPSA Gender Monitoring Report 2011, Montreal: IPSA.
Kia Kindroos, LindaCardinal, Marian Sawer and Mathieu St-Laurent, (2014). IPSA Gender Monitoring Report 2013, Montreal: IPSA.