This annual award aims to recognize the best article appearing in the previous year’s volume of the ECPR's professional journal, European Political Science (EPS). The prize is given to an article that makes a substantial contribution to the field of political science, especially articles that contribute to the understanding of new and innovative trends in political science or to innovative approaches to teaching and learning in the profession.

For more information on the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize, including how it's selected and previous winners please click here.

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2021

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2021:

Osman Sabri Kiratli, "Public sensitivity to cultural identity and regime type of trading partners: a survey experiment from Turkey and Greece," (EPS Volume 20, 2021).

Read the article for free here

'The committee unanimously recognises the substantial contribution that this article makes to the advancement of new and innovative trends in political science. […] [Its] hypotheses are tested by means of vignette experiments in national surveys fielded in Turkey and Greece. […] The results are significant and show that the sharing of democratic values has an influence on people's orientations towards other groups, an insight that merits greater attention in future research in this area.'

The jury for the 2021 prize consisted of:

Giliberto Capano (Chair, non-voting) University of Bologna
Tuuli-Marja Kleiner Thünen Institute of Rural Studies
Heidrun Maurer Danube University
Will Jennings University of Southampton

Honorable Mentions

We’re also delighted to announce that the jury has selected two articles for honourable mentions, one on the subject of teaching and the other on the subject of the profession.

Teaching:
Playing out diplomacy: gamified realization of future skills and discipline-specific theory, by Milla Kruskopf, Elina E. Ketonen, and Mikael Mattlin.

Profession:
Identity formation of the profession in a latecomer political science community (Open Access), by Gábor Tamás Molnár and Gabriella Ilonszki Read full laudation

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2020

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2020:

Tuuli-Marja Kleiner, “Does Ideological Polarisation Mobilise Citizens?” (EPS, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2020)

Read the article for free here

This annual award aims to recognize the best article appearing in the previous year’s volume of the ECPR's professional journal, European Political Science (EPS). The prize is given to an article that makes a substantial contribution to the field of political science, especially articles that contribute to the understanding of new and innovative trends in political science or to innovative approaches to teaching and learning in the profession.

The prize jury for 2020 was: Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale University (Chair), Ben Rosamond, University of Copenhagen, and winner of the 2019 prize, Stuart A. Brown, London School of Economics and Politics. The jury reviewed all the articles published in 2020 to determine yourself as the winner. The jury had the following commendation to make:

The committee unanimously recommends that the prize be given to Tuuli-Marja Kleiner for the paper: “Does Ideological Polarisation Mobilise Citizens?” The paper makes an important contribution to an emerging field of study. The author uses subnational European data on voting and non- voting participation to see if increases in polarization induce higher levels of political engagements. Although there are countless examples of entrenched political polarization, political scientists have only begun to seek an adequate understanding of how this affects citizens’ engagement with politics. The author finds that political-party polarization does produce more non-electoral engagement by citizens but does not lead to higher levels of turnout at the polls. The effect is mostly driven by those with far-right views. The analysis is well done, and it acts as a solid starting point for future research. The focus on non-electoral participation confirms other work showing its importance to the development of populist movements.

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2019

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2019:

Stuart Brown, “Britain’s EU referendum: How did political science rise to the challenge? An assessment of online contributions during the campaign.” (EPS, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2019)

Read the article for free here

As new media offer political scientists increasing opportunities to engage in public discourse, Stuart Brown provides a timely and highly relevant piece evaluating the contributions of political scientists to the BREXIT referendum in Britain. Brown finds that academics are faced with two competing pressures in their public engagement. On the one hand, positional content supporting one side of a highly polarized debate generates greater public interest; on the other, the value of academic contributions to public discourse is in their credibility, which is tied to the perception of political scientists as “fair-minded observers” making “evidence-based contributions.” Brown cautions political scientists tempted by the siren song of likes and page views to void conflating popularity of content with the value of content. Instead, Brown challenges us to consider the long-term impact of each contribution, and to value works offering enduring insights over positional pieces that are quickly shared but quickly forgotten.

Selection Committee:
Charity Butcher, Kennesaw State University (chair)
Silvia Erzeel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Christopher Pallas, Kennesaw State University

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2018

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2018:

Matt Flinders, "The future of political science? The politics and management of the academic expectations gap: evidence from the UK." (EPS, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2018)

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The central argument of this article by Matt Flinders (University of Sheffield) is that a focus on the ‘relevance gap’ in political science, and the social sciences more generally, risks failing to comprehend the emergence of a far broader and multifaceted ‘expectations gap’. Matt postulates that the future of political science will depend on the politics and management of the ‘expectations gap’ that has emerged. Put slightly differently, the study of politics needs to have a sharper grasp of the politics of its own discipline and the importance of framing, positioning, connecting vis-à-vis the broader social context.

In the words of our prize Jury: ‘In his most timely wake-up call, Matthew Flinders addresses the challenges of political science as a profession in a changing world. The author skilfully combines a sharp analysis of the capacity of the discipline in light of fundamentally altered public expectations towards it with a passionate call for creating a new balance between internal expertise and external engagement. His suggestions for a ‘new politics’ of political science are as compelling as inspiring, and should not fail to engage political scientists across Europe and beyond.

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2017

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2017:

Christopher Pallas & Charity Butcher, "Using dating as an analogy
to teach international relations theory." (EPS, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2017)

Read the article for free here

The judging panel described this article by Christopher L. Pallas and Charity Butcher of Kennesaw State University as follows: ‘...an innovative and novel way to encourage political science students to think about and engage with IR theory. We liked the presentation of the method in a “recipe style”, so that people can actually apply it, and the discussion is still fulfilling high standards; also, the experience of dating is (somewhat) universal, so that students from different gendered, social and ethnic backgrounds can relate to it’.

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2016

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2016:

Katjana Gattermann, Ariella Huff & Anna-Lena Högenauer, "Studying a new phase of europeanisation of national parliaments." (EPS, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2016)

Read the article for free here

Our judges agreed that this article by Katjana Gattermann (University of Amsterdam), Ariella Huff (House of Commons) and Anna-Lena Högenauer (University of Luxembourg) pointed to a new trend in national parliaments in the EU, and that it argued for the need to redirect our studies of these parliaments to better capture this development. In particular, the authors argued that a new phase of Europeanisation is evident, where parliaments are increasingly ‘mainstreaming’ EU affairs, blurring the traditional distinction between national and European policies. After first demonstrating the existence of this trend, the authors argued that it should have significant implications for future research. This trend, and the discussion of how to capture it in contemporary research, is especially relevant for readers of EPS.

Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2015

Congratulations to the winning article of the Jacqui Briggs EPS Prize 2015:

Alexander Schmotz, "Vulnerability and compensation: Constructing an index of co-optation in autocratic regimes." (Vol. 14, No. 4, 2015)

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This article by Alexander Schmotz of Kings College London develops an innovative index of co-optation in autocratic regimes, which goes beyond the usual limited institutional focus. The author argues that co-optation is constituted by the compensation of regime vulnerability through institutional inclusion and material benefits to various pressure groups. Consequently, his index is based on indicators of vulnerability and compensation for a variety of pressure groups from military, capital and labour to parties, ethnic groups and landowners. The index is tested on models of survival or breakdown of autocratic regimes. Alexander’s article, which is innovative, theoretically sound, and very impressive, makes an original contribution to the literature by offering a comprehensive measure of co-optation. At the same time, he is well aware of the limitations of the research, not least the scarcity of good indicators of compensation and vulnerability.

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