Several Political Science Faculty honoured at APSA’s 2015 gathering

September 4, 2015

Four faculty members from the department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, are being recognised at the 2015 gathering of The American Political Science Association.

The C. Herman Pritchett Award, given annually for the best book on law and courts written by a political scientist, is being awarded to The University of Toronto’s Professor Ran Hirschl (left), Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development, for his book ‘Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law’ (OUP, 2014).

Speaking about his win, Professor Hirschl commented, “Comparative constitutional thought has become one of Canada’s main intellectual exports. I’m delighted that my work has contributed to this trend. Writing ‘Comparative Matters’ was a profoundly rewarding intellectual experience. The book attempts to build an epistemological and methodological bridge between the study of comparative constitutionalism by political scientists and its study by legal academics. The APSA Pritchett award has been a marker of excellence in political science scholarship on law and courts for years. Many of the past winning books are now considered classic contributions to the field. I hope that ‘Comparative Matters’ follows suit. Either way, it feels great to be recognized by my professional peers, and to follow in the footsteps of quite a few of our colleagues in the department who have won major book awards by the American or the Canadian Political Science Association.” Professor Hirschl becomes the second University of Toronto winner, our own Professor Peter Russell having won the award in 2006.

Other University of Toronto Political Science faculty to receive awards this year include Professor Lawrence LeDuc, recipient of the Mildred A. Schwartz lifetime achievement award in Canadian politics. The award recognizes scholarship and leadership in bringing the study of Canadian Politics to the international political science community. Professor Le Duc becomes the third recipient of the Mildred A. Schwartz lifetime achievement award from The University of Toronto’s Political Science department. Previous winners include Professsor Peter Russell in 2012 and Professor Sylvia Bashevkin in 2014.

Assistant Professor Stefan Renckens receives The Virginia M. Walsh Award for the best dissertation in the field of science, technology and environmental politics while Assistant Professor Teresa M. Bejan receives The Leo Strauss Award, given annually for the best dissertation in the field of political philosophy.

The 111^{th APSA meeting}, whose theme this year is ‘Diversities Reconsidered: Politics and Political Science in the 21^st Century’ will see over 6,000 of the world’s foremost academic political scientists gather for four days of lectures, sessions, networking and scholarly discussion from September 3-6 in San Francisco.