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Presented each year to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.

Award Committee: Susan L. Shirk, Chair, University of California, San Diego; Peter Andreas, Brown University; and J. Nicholas Ziegler, University of California, Berkeley

Recipient:  Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek International

Citation: Fareed Zakaria, in his roles as editor, columnist, television commentator, and book author, has had a deep and widespread influence on public understandings of some of the most central issues of contemporary politics and international relations, including the domestic sources of international influence and the ingredients of an effective democracy.   Trained at Harvard as a political scientist and speaking and writing as a journalist, Zakaria contributes original insights about the core principles of politics while addressing real-world events and trends.  

In the fifteen years of his journalistic career, Fareed Zakaria has produced a huge volume of regular commentary on international affairs.  His column appears weekly in Newsweek and Newsweek International, and biweekly in the Washington Post.  Fareed Zakaria GPS, his weekly interview show on CNN, is the only hour-long in-depth discussion of foreign policy issues that can be found on American television.  

Zakaria is not afraid to question conventional wisdom. Unlike other political commentators who adhere to a consistent line on the left or right, Zakaria’s columns reveal an impressive political independence and intellectual objectivity.  In a self-critical spirit, he sometimes acknowledges past mistakes of analytical judgment.   He frequently criticizes American foreign policy, but he avoids the common syndrome of blaming Washington for every world problem.  His analysis helps readers understand the complex political dynamics driving the foreign policies of other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Asia.  One of his most influential essays, “Why They Hate Us” (published as a Newsweek cover story in October 2001) identifies the root causes of anti-Americanism as imbedded in specific features of the autocratic regimes in Arab countries from which terrorist organizations have emerged.     

Fareed Zakaria has also done great public service as an editor.  Earlier in his career, while serving as managing editor of Foreign Affairs, his inclusion of unorthodox viewpoints and his graceful editing revitalized this premier foreign policy journal.  Since 2000 he has been the editor of all the overseas editions of Newsweek International with 23 million readers around the globe.