Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Section Award Recipients
More on the Qualitative and Multi-Method Research section
Alexander L. George Article Award
David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award
Giovanni Sartori Book Award
The Qualitative Submission to APSR Award
Kendra Koivu Paper Award (formerly the Sage Paper Award)
Alexander L. George Article Award
Honors Alexander George’s contributions to the comparative case-study method, including his work linking that method to a systematic concern with research design, and his contribution of developing the idea and the practice of process tracing. This award may be granted to a journal article or to a chapter in an edited volume that stands on its own as an article. The award will be given to an article or book chapter published in the calendar year prior to the year of the APSA meeting at which the award is presented, with the date of publication being established by the journal issue for articles and the copyright date of the book for chapters.
| 2025 | Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos, Oxford University Juan Masullo, Leiden University “Aligning Interviews with Process Tracing.” Sociological Methods and Research, 2024. |
| 2025 | Honorable Mention Kurt Weyland, University of Texas at Austin “Concept Misformation in an Age of Democratic Anxiety: Recent Temptations and Their Downsides.” World Politics. |
| 2024 | Killian Clarke, Georgetown University “Ambivalent allies: How inconsistent foreign support dooms new democracies.” Journal of Peace Research, 2023. |
| 2024 | Thalia Gerzso, London School of Economics “Judicial resistance during electoral disputes: Evidence from Kenya.” Electoral Studies, 2023. |
| 2023 | Eun A Jo, Cornell University “Memory, Institutions, and the Domestic Politics of South Korean-Japanese Relations.” International Organization 76, Fall 2022, pp. 767–98. |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention Danielle Gilbert, Dartmouth College “The Logic of Kidnapping in Civil War: Evidence from Columbia.” American Political Science Review [2022] 116, 4, 1226–1241. |
| 2022 | Nicholas Barnes, University of St. Andrews “The Logic of Criminal Territorial Control: Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro” Comparative Political Studies, 2021. |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention Sarah J. Lockwood, Colombia University “Protest Brokers and the Technology of Mobilization: Evidence from South Africa,” Comparative Political Studies, 2021. |
| 2021 | Emily Kalah Gade “Social Isolation and Repertoires of Resistance,” American Political Science Review, 114, 2, May 2020, pp. 309-325 |
| 2020 | Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos, University of Oxford “Process Tracing and the Problem of Missing Data.” Sociological Methods & Research. 2019. |
| 2020 | Jody LaPorte, University of Oxford “Process Tracing and the Problem of Missing Data.” Sociological Methods & Research. 2019. |
| 2020 | Rana B. Khoury, Northwestern University |
| 2019 | Jennifer Larson, Vanderbilt University “Rumors, Kinship Networks, and Rebel Group Formation.” |
| 2019 | Janet Lewis, United States Naval Academy “Rumors, Kinship Networks, and Rebel Group Formation.” |
| 2018 | Calla Hummel, University of Texas at Austin “Disobedient Markets: Street Vendors, Enforcement, and State Intervention in Collective Action.” Comparative Political Studies 50(11): 1524–1555. |
| 2017 | Kurt Weyland, University of Texas at Austin “Crafting Counterrevolution: How Reactionaries Learned to Combat Change in 1848.” American Political Science Review 110(2): 215–31. |
| 2016 | Thomas Rixen, University of Bamberg “Putting path dependence in its place: toward a Taxonomy of institutional change.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 27(2) (April 2015): 301-323 |
| 2016 | Lora Anne Viola, Free University of Berlin “Putting path dependence in its place: toward a Taxonomy of institutional change.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 27(2) (April 2015): 301-323 |
| 2015 | Noam Lupu, University of Wisconsin, Madison “Brand Dilution and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America.” World Politics 66(4) (October 2014): 561-602. |
| 2014 | Jonathan Mercer, University of Washington “Emotion and Strategy in the Korean War.” April 2013 International Organization, 67 (2): 221-252 |
| 2013 | Hillel Soifer, Temple University “The Causal Logic of Critical Junctures (Comparative Political Studies 45:12 December 2012) |
| 2012 | Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Time Will Tell: Temporality and the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms and Processes |
| 2011 | Melani Cammett, Brown University Bricks and Mortar Clientelism: Sectarianism and the Logics of Welfare Allocation in Lebanon |
| 2011 | Sukriti Issar, Brown University Bricks and Mortar Clientelism: Sectarianism and the Logics of Welfare Allocation in Lebanon |
| 2009 | James Mahoney, Northwestern University Toward a Unified Theory of Causality, Comparative Political Studies 41:412-36 (April/May 2008) |
| 2006 | George Thomas, Williams College “What Dataset: The Qualitative Foundations of Law and Courts Scholarship,” Law and Courts 16 (1): 5-12 |
| 2005 | Gary Goertz, University of Arizona “The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research.” American Political Science Review 98, no. 4 (November 2004): 653-669 |
| 2005 | Henry Hale, Indiana University “Divided We Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse.” World Politics 56, no. 2 (January 2004): 165-193. |
| 2005 | James Mahoney, Northwestern University “The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research.” American Political Science Review 98, no. 4 (November 2004): 653-669 |
| 2004 | Peter Hall, Harvard University “Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Research” in James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2003) |
David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award
The Award honors David Collier’s contributions-through his research, graduate teaching, and institution-building-as a founder of the qualitative and multi-method research movement in contemporary political science. The award will be presented annually to a mid-career political scientist to recognize distinction in methodological publications, innovative application of qualitative and multi-method approaches in substantive research, and/or institutional contributions to this area of methodology.
| 2025 | Amanda Robinson, The Ohio State University |
| 2024 | Tasha Fairfield, London School of Economics |
| 2023 | Erica Simmons, University of Wisconsin- Madison |
| 2023 | Nicholas Rush Smith, City University of New York |
| 2021 | Hillel Soifer, Temple University |
| 2020 | Jennifer Cyr, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella |
| 2019 | Carsten Schneider, Central European University |
| 2018 | Jason Seawright, Northwestern University |
| 2017 | Alan Jacobs, University of British Columbia |
| 2017 | Tim Büthe, Duke University |
| 2016 | Lauren Mathews Morris MacLean, Indiana University |
| 2015 | Thad Dunning, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2014 | Evan Lieberman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2013 | Diana Kapiszewski, Georgetown University |
| 2012 | Colin Elman, Syracuse University |
| 2011 | Daniel Carpenter, Harvard University |
| 2010 | James Mahoney, Northwestern University |
| 2010 | Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago |
Giovanni Sartori Book Award
The Giovanni Sartori Book Award honors Giovanni Sartori’s work on qualitative methods and concept formation, and especially his contribution to helping scholars think about problems of context as they refine concepts and apply them to new spatial and temporal settings. The award is intended to encompass two types of contributions: new research on methodology per se, i.e., studies that introduce specific methodological innovations or that synthesize and integrate methodological ideas in a way that is in itself a methodological contribution; and substantive work that is an exemplar for the application of qualitative methods. This award may be granted to a single-authored or multi-authored book, or to an edited volume. The award will be given to works published in the calendar year prior to the year of the APSA meeting at which the award is presented. The copyright date of a book will establish the relevant year.
| 2025 | Erin Lin, The Ohio State University When the Bombs Stopped: The Legacy of War in Rural Cambodia. Princeton University Press, 2024. |
| 2025 | Honorable Mention Margaret L. Boittin, York University The Regulation of Prostitution in China: Law in the Everyday Lives of Sex Workers, Police Officers, and Public Health Officials. Cambridge University Press, 2024. |
| 2024 | Adam Auerbach, American University Tariq Thachil, University of Pennsylvania Migrants and Machine Politics. How India’s Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness. Princeton University Press, 2023. |
| 2023 | Fiona Feiang Shen-Bayh, College of William and Mary Undue Process. Cambridge 2022. |
| 2023 | Honorable Mention Tomila Lankina, London School of Economics The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia. Cambridge 2022. |
| 2022 | Paul Staniland, University of Chicago Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation, Cornell University Press, 2021. |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention Eduardo Moncada, Barnard College Resisting Extortion: Victims, Criminals, and States in Latin America, Cambridge University Press, 2021. |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention Martha Wilfahrt, University of California, Berkeley Precolonial Legacies in Postcolonial Politics: Representation and Redistribution in Decentralized West Africa, Cambridge, 2021. |
| 2021 | Diana Kim Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia |
| 2021 | Devorah S. Manekin Regular Soldiers, Irregular War: Violence and Restraint in the Second Intifada |
| 2021 | Honorable Mention Janet I. Lewis How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyons |
| 2020 | Jennifer Bussell, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2020 | Gwyneth H. McClendon, New York University |
| 2020 | Rachel Beatty Riedl, Cornell University |
| 2019 | Simeon Nichter, University of California, San Diego |
| 2018 | Alisha Holland, Princeton University Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare. Cambridge University Press. |
| 2017 | Katherine J. Cramer, University of Wisconsin, Madison The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. University of Chicago Press, 2016. |
| 2016 | Ronald R. Krebs, University of Minnesota Narrative and the Making of US National Security. Cambridge University Press, 2015 |
| 2016 | Honorable Mention Anna Grzymała-Busse, University of Michigan Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy. Princeton University Press, 2015 |
| 2015 | Melani Cammett, Harvard University Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon. Cornell University Press, 2014. |
| 2014 | Katerina Linos, University of California, Berkeley The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion: How Health, Family and Employment Laws Spread Across Countries Oxford University Press, 2013 |
| 2014 | Honorable Mention Rebecca Abers, University of Brasilia “Practical Authority: Agency and Institutional Change in Brazilian Water Politics.” Oxford University Press, 2013. |
| 2014 | Honorable Mention Margaret Keck, Johns Hopkins University “Practical Authority: Agency and Institutional Change in Brazilian Water Politics. Oxford University Press, 2013. |
| 2013 | Kristen Monroe, University of California, Irvine Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide: Identity and Moral Choice (Princeton University Press, 2012) |
| 2012 | Alan Jacobs, University of British Columbia Governing for the Long Term: Democracy and the Politics of Investment (Cambridge University Press, 2011) |
| 2011 | Lauren MacLean, Indiana University Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire |
| 2010 | Edward Schatz, University of Toronto Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power |
| 2010 | Evan Lieberman, Princeton University Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to AIDS |
| 2009 | Margaret Somers, University of Michigan Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to have Rights (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2007 | Gary Goertz, University of Arizona Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide |
| 2006 | Alexander George, Stanford University Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (MIT Press, 2005) |
| 2006 | Andrew Bennett, Georgetown University Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (MIT Press, 2005) |
| 2005 | Henry Brady, University of California, Berkeley Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). |
| 2005 | David Collier, University of California, Berkeley Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). |
| 2004 | James Mahoney, Brown University Co-Edited with Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Brown University, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2003) |
| 2004 | Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Brown University Co-Edited with James Mahoney, Brown University, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2003) |
The Qualitative Submission to APSR Award
For the best qualitative manuscript submitted to the American Political Science Review in the calendar year. The award will be offered in 2011 through 2014, and the winner in each year will receive $2,000. To be eligible: ( 1) the manuscript need only be submitted to (not necessarily published in) the journal; (2) the manuscript needs to have been submitted during the calendar year, with the date of submission determined by the acknowledgement email from the APSR; (3) both new and subsequent submissions (e.g., resulting from an invitation to submit de novo or to revise and resubmit) are eligible for the award, but only one version of the manuscript is eligible for the award in any one calendar year; and (4) the manuscript submitted to the APSR must be (a) new research on qualitative methodology per se, i.e., a study that introduces specific methodological innovations or that synthesizes and integrates methodological ideas in a way that is in itself a methodological contribution; and/or (b) substantive work that is an exemplar for the application of qualitative methods, or of multi-methods with a substantial qualitative component.
| 2014 | Macartan Humphreys, Columbia University “Mixing Methods: A Bayesian Unification of Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches.” |
| 2014 | Alan Jacobs, University of British Columbia “Mixing Methods: A Bayesian Unification of Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches.” |
| 2013 | Katherine Cramer, University of Wisconsin, Madison Putting Inequality in Its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective |
| 2012 | Jeremy Menchik, Boston University The Origins of Intolerance in Islamic Institutions |
| 2012 | Paul Staniland, University of Chicago |
Kendra Koivu Paper Award (formerly the Sage Paper Award)
In October 2019, the section marked the field’s collective and enduring appreciation for Kendra Koivu, University of New Mexico, by renaming the award to honor and celebrate Kendra’s contributions. Accordingly, awards made in 2019 and earlier are for the Sage paper award. 2020 and later, for the Kendra Koivu paper award. This award will be given to a paper presented at the previous Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
| 2025 | Ronay Bakan, Johns Hopkins University “Counterinsurgent Urbanism: Conflict in Ruins of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” |
| 2025 | Honorable Mention Ulaş Erdoğdu, Northwestern University “Nearly Realized Cases: A Novel Framework to Select Negative Cases for Comparative Theory Development.” |
| 2024 | Shelley Liu, Duke University “Coercive Legacies of Rebel Governance: Evidence from Zimbabwe.” |
| 2023 | Jasmine English, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Dilemmas of Accommodation” |
| 2023 | Regina Bateson, University of Ottawa “Finding Meaning in Politics” |
| 2023 | Mathias Poertner, London School of Economics “Mass Politics 2.0” |
| 2023 | Candelaria Garay, Universidad di Tella “Mass Politics 2.0” |
| 2023 | Brian Palmer-Rubin, Marquette University “Mass Politics 2.0” |
| 2022 | Jasmine English, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2022 | Bernardo Zacka, MIT “The Politics of Sight: Revisiting Timothy Pachirat’s Every Twelve Seconds,” Presented at APSA. |
| 2022 | Honorable Mention Yuan Wang, Duke Kunshan University “Executive Agency and State Capacity in Development: Comparing Sino-African Railways in Kenya and Ethiopia,” Presented at APSA. |
Politics of Marginalization and Inclusion Award
This award draws attention to and elevates research that focuses on the historic and ongoing impacts of discrimination and exclusion, and struggles for inclusion, in society. This award is for an outstanding qualitative or multi-method publication that explicitly engages with and contributes to knowledge of the politics of marginalization and inclusion.
| 2025 | Erin Lin, The Ohio State University When the Bombs Stopped: The Legacy of War in Rural Cambodia. Princeton University Press, 2024. |
| 2025 | Nirvikar Jassal, London School of Economics and Political Science “Does Victim Gender Matter for Justice Delivery? Police and Judicial Responses to Women’s Cases in India.” American Political Science Review 118(3): 1278-1304. 2024. |
Qualitative Evidence Award
This award is dedicated to amplifying the innovative conceptualization, generation, and use of data. The qualitative evidence award recognizes the value in exploring new questions in novel ways and older questions with fresh eyes. It incentivizes creativity and ambition in data generation while underscoring the methodological aspect of QMMR and the intellectual significance of qualitative and multi-method research.
| 2025 | Apekshya Prasai, Brown University “Gendered Processes of Rebellion: Understanding Strategies for Organizing Violence.” |
| 2025 | Honorable Mention Isabel Laterzo-Tingley, University of Texas at Austin “Political Positions on Public Security.” |