The Royal Society of Canada Names Four New Fellows from the Department

September 9, 2014

The Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada have elected four new Fellows from the Department of Political Science in recognition of their outstanding work as leading intellectuals and researchers.

“The RSC warmly welcomes this year’s 90 newly elected Fellows. These outstanding scholars, artists and scientists will be joining the Society due to their outstanding work in the arts, humanities and sciences,” said Graham Bell, President of the Royal Society of Canada. “By promoting and recognizing these leading intellectuals and researchers, the Royal Society of Canada continues to be on the forefront of significant advances for the betterment of Canada and the world.”

Founded in 1882, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) comprises the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada. Its mission is to recognize scholarly, research and artistic excellence, to advise governments and organizations, and to promote a culture of knowledge and innovation in Canada and with other national academies around the world.

Citations from the department’s newly elected Fellows:

hirschl-ranRan Hirschl is one of the world’s most influential scholars of comparative constitutional law, courts and jurisprudence. Original, bold, methodologically innovative and staggeringly productive, he has pioneered rigorous study of the causes and consequences of the global movement to endow high courts with the power of judicial review. He has made significant contributions to the interdisciplinary exploration of comparative constitutionalism, and to our understanding of the field’s history, methodology and practice worldwide.

rayside-david David Rayside is internationally recognized for his comparative studies of sexual diversity politics in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He was one of the first political scientists to publish on this topic, and this work, alongside that on gender inequity and religious contention, remains distinctive for its detailed attention to local, regional, national, and international contexts. He has combined this scholarship with a commitment to expanding the recognition of diversity in university settings, Canadian and American academic networks, labour unions, the media, and the broader community.

Judith Teichman is a leading authority on the political economy of development and politics of Latin America with specialization in three related subjects: poverty and inequality, the politics of market reform, and the policy-making process. She has focused on three of the region’s most important countries: Mexico, Argentina and Chile. Professor Teichman is the author of four books, the coauthor of a fifth book and the author of many scholarly articles. The nomination of several of her books for prestigious awards, her winning of two coveted research fellowships and her exceptional success in winning grants from the SSHRC attest to the superior quality of her scholarship.

Ayelet Shachar has achieved international recognition for her innovative scholarship on citizenship and multiculturalism. Her award-winning work combines methods and insights from law and political theory with concrete, problem-solving institutional design. It has inspired a whole new generation of thinking about how best to mitigate tensions between religious diversity and gender equality, as well as between citizenship and global justice, and has proved influential in public policy debates in Canada and abroad.

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