American Political Thought Section Award Recipients
About the American Political Thought Section
Best Paper Delivered on a Topic Within American Political Thought at the APSA Annual Meeting
Best Dissertation in American Political Thought
Best Book in American Political Thought
Best Article in the Journal of American Political Thought
Best Paper Delivered on a Topic Within American Political Thought at the APSA Annual Meeting
Best paper in American political thought presented at the previous conference
| 2025 | Susan McWilliams Brandt, Pomona College “A Tale of Two Liberalisms: Desegregating American Political Thought.” |
| 2024 | Michelle Rose, California State University, Chico “The ‘Great Debate’ of the Harlem Renaissance: A Democratic Ethics of Encounter.” |
Best Dissertation in American Political Thought
Awarded every three years to the best dissertation in American political thought completed, successfully defended, and submitted in the previous three years
| 2025 | Stephen Goniprow, Hillsdale College “An Introduction to Global Justice Theory.” |
| 2024 | David M. Ferkaluk, University at Albany – SUNY “A Broader and Deeper Foundation: The Alternative Vision of James Wilson’s Political Philosophy.” |
Best Book in American Political Thought
The Best Book in American Political Thought Award will be chosen every year by the section council.
| 2025 | Keidrick Roy, Dartmouth College American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism. Princeton University Press, 2024. |
| 2024 | Melvin L. Rogers, Brown University The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought. Princeton University Press, 2023. |
| 2022 | Emily Pears, Claremont McKenna College Chords of Affection: Constructing Constitutional Union in Early American History, University Press of Kansas, 2021. |
| 2020 | Corey Robin, Brooklyn College/CUNY The Enigma of Clarence Thomas. Metropolitan Books, 2019. |
| 2019 | Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era. Harvard University Press, 2018. |
| 2018 | Forrest Nabors, University of Alaska at Anchorage From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction. University of Missouri Press, 2017. |
Best Article in the Journal of American Political Thought
The best article in American Political Thought will be chosen every year by the section council from among the articles published in the journal American Political Thought.
| 2025 | Jacob Little, Duke University “Tough Love: James Baldwins’ Artistic Politics.” American Political Thought 13(2): 145-164. 2024. |
| 2024 | Sean Beienburg, Arizona State University Aaron Kushner, Arizona State Univeristy “Conservative Progressivism? Michael Cunniff, Federalism, and the Founding of Arizona,” American Political Thought: A Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture, (Fall, 2023): 552-580. |
| 2022 | Cara J. Rogers, Ashland University “The French Experiment: Thomas Jefferson and William Short Debate Slavery, 1785-1826,” American Political Thought, v10 #3 (Summer 2021). |
| 2020 | Sean Beienburg, ASU “Progressivism and States’ Rights: Constitutional Dialogue between the States and Federal Courts on Minimum Wages and Liberty of Contract.” American Political Thought, Vol 8 Winter 2019. |
| 2020 | Steven Bilakovics, University of California, Irvine “The Vices of Our Virtues: Tocqueville and the Constitution of the American Dream.” American Political Thought, Vol 8 Summer 2019. |
| 2019 | Sean Beienburg, Arizona State University “Neither Nullification nor Nationalism: The Battle for the States’ Rights Middle Ground during Prohibition.” American Political Thought 7(2): 271-303. |
| 2018 | Matthew Brogdon, University of Texas at San Antonio “Constitutional Text and Institutional Development: Consenting the Madisonian Compromise in the First Congress.” Journal of American Political Thought. |
Lifetime Achievement Award
Awarded annually to a political scientist who has defended American political thought as a distinct and distinguished field of inquiry within political science and made extraordinary contributions to research and teaching in the field.
| 2025 | Rogers Smith, University of Pennsylvania |
| 2024 | Michael Zuckert, Arizona State University |