announcement details appear below
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Dear Chairs of APSA Organized Sections,
Please post this announcement and attachment to your respective listservs.
This year’s Brown Democracy Medal competition will recognize an exceptional
advance in democratic scholarship, broadly construed. The winner will
receive a medal and $5,000 dollar award. Submissions can include conceptual
advances, moral philosophical insights, rhetorical, interpretive or
historical theories, empirical or causal models, and/or innovations in the
design of democratic processes. Both self-nominations and nominations of
others’ innovations are welcomed. Please see the attachment for details.
The deadline for nominations is December 10th.
Thank you,
Mark Major
Mark Major
Associate Director, The McCourtney Institute for Democracy
Lecturer, Department of Political Science
Penn State University
[log in to unmask]
Author of The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media: The Politics of
Framing Executive Power
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/The-Unilateral-Presidency-and-the-News-Media/?K=9781137393067
Seeking Nominations for the 2015
Penn State Democracy Medal
Each year, the Pennsylvania State University McCourtney Institute for
Democracy gives a medal and $5,000 award for exceptional innovations that
advance the design and practice of democracy. The medal celebrates and
helps to publicize the best work being done by individuals or organizations
to advance democracy in the United States or around the globe. The
Institute gives medals in even-numbered years to recognize practical
innovations,
such as new institutions, laws, technologies, or movements that advance
democracy. In odd-
numbered years, the awards celebrate advances in democratic theory that
provide richer philosophical or empirical conceptions of democracy. The
Participatory Budgeting Project won the first medal in 2014 for the best
innovation in the practice of democracy (see details at
democracyinstitute.la.psu.edu).
Nominations will be accepted through December 10, 2014, and the awardee
will be announced in the spring of 2015. The winning individual (or
representative of a winning organization) will give a talk at Penn State in the
fall of 2015, when they also receive their medal and $5,000 award. Between
the spring announcement of the winner and the on-campus event in the fall,
the Institute provides the recipient with professional editorial assistance
toward completing a short (20-25 pages) essay describing the innovation for
a general audience.
Cornell University Press will publish the essay, which will be available to
the general public at a very low price in electronic and print formats to
aid the diffusion of the winning innovation.
Award Review Process for Innovations in Democratic Theory
This year’s Brown Medal competition will recognize an exceptional advance
in democratic theory, broadly construed. Submissions can include conceptual
advances, moral philosophical insights, rhetorical, interpretive or
historical theories, empirical or causal models, and/or innovations in the
design of democratic processes. Innovating ideas, models, and designs have
been instrumental in advancing democracy on both large and small social
scales, both in recent years and over the centuries of democratic practice.
Examples include
new methods of voting and representation, new notions of civil and human
rights, theories of political communication, polarization, social capital,
and social movements, models of democratization and its impediments, and
deliberative and participatory re-conceptualizations of democracy.
Nominations will be accepted through December 10, 2014, and the awardee
will be announced in the spring of 2015. Recipients may be scholars, civic
reformers, non-governmental organizations, or any other individual or
entity responsible for the theoretical innovation. The winner (or the
representative of the winning organization) will give a talk at Penn State
in the fall of 2015, when we will also present their medal and $5,000
award. Between the spring announcement of the winner and the on-campus
event in the fall, the
Institute will provide the recipient with professional editorial assistance
toward completing a short (20-25 page) essay describing the innovation for
a general audience. In the fall, Cornell University Press will publish the
essay, which will be available to the general public at a very low price in
electronic and print formats to aid the diffusion of the winning
innovation.
All nomination letters must be emailed by December 10, 2014 to
[log in to unmask] to guarantee full review. Initial nomination letters
are simply a one-to-two page letter that describes the innovation, its
author/s,
and the accessible location of its fullest expression (e.g., in a scholarly
article, magazine essay, or on the Internet). Both self-nominations and
nominations of others’ innovations are welcomed. In either case, email,
phone, and postal contact information for the nominee must be included.
By January, 2015, a panel composed of Penn State faculty and independent
reviewers will screen those initial nominations and select a subset of
nominees who will be notified that they have advanced to a second round.
By the end of February, those in the second round will be invited to
provide further documentation, which includes the following: biographical
sketch of the individual or organization nominated (max. 2 pages); two
letters of support from persons familiar with their theoretical innovation,
particularly those who work independently from the nominee; a basic
description of the innovation and its efficacy, with a maximum length of 30
pages of printed materials and/or 30 minutes of audio/video materials; and
a one-page description of who would come to Penn State to receive award and
who would draft the essay describing
the innovation. The review panel will then scrutinize the more detailed
applications and select an awardee by the end of April.
Review Criteria
The theoretical innovation selected will score highest on these features:
1. Novelty. The innovation is precisely that—a genuinely new way of
thinking about democracy. It will likely build on or draw on past ideas and
practices, but its novelty must be obvious.
2. Systemic change. The theory, concept, or design should be able to change
systematically how we think about and practice democracy. Conceptual
insights should be of the highest clarity and quality, and empirical models
should be rigorous and grounded in evidence. The practical significance of
the innovation should be systematic, in that it can alter the larger
functioning of a democratic system over a long time frame.
3. Potential for Diffusion. The innovation should have general
applicability across many different scales and cultural contexts. In other
words, it should be relevant to people who aspire to democracy in many
parts of the world and/or in many different social or political settings.
4. Democratic Quality. The spirit of this innovation must be nonpartisan
and advance the most essential qualities of democracy, such as broad social
inclusion, deliberativeness, political equality, and effective
self-governance. Nominees themselves may be partisan but their innovation
should have nonpartisan or trans-partisan value.
5. Recency. The award is intended to recognize recent theoretical
accomplishments, which have occurred during the previous five years. The
roots of an innovation could run deeper, especially as an idea or theory is
developed and tested over time, but within the past five years, there must
have been significant advances in its refinement or expression.
When choosing among otherwise equally qualified submissions, the review
panel will also consider two practical questions. Who would give the
lecture on campus and meet with the PSU community? Who would write the
essay about the innovation? Neither needs to be the nominee, nor the
nominator.
Individuals or organizations who have worked closely with the Institute’s
director (Dr. John Gastil) or associate director (Dr. Mark Major) in the
past five years are not eligible. For the first five years of the award (i.e.,
until 2019), Penn State alums or employees are also ineligible.
Questions and Further Information
Any questions or requests for more information should be sent to
[log in to unmask]
The Pennsylvania State University McCourtney Institute for Democracy (
democracyinstitute.la.psu.edu) promotes rigorous scholarship and practical
innovations to advance the democratic process in the United States and
abroad. The Institute pursues this mission in partnership with the Center
for Democratic
Deliberation (CDD) and the Center for American Political Responsiveness
(CAPR). The CDD studies and advances public deliberation, whereas CAPR
attends to the relationship between the public’s priorities and the actions
of elected bodies. Whereas each center focuses on the questions most
salient to its mission, the Institute tends to larger issues and
connections between those questions. The Institute examines the interplay
of deliberative, electoral, and institutional dynamics. It recognizes that
effective deliberation among citizens has the potential to reshape both the
character of public opinion and the dynamics of electoral politics,
particularly in states and local communities. Likewise, political agendas
and institutional processes can shape the ways people frame and discuss
issues. The main activities of the institute include giving a major annual
award for democratic innovation, bringing speakers to campus, sponsoring
faculty roundtables and workshops, and financially supporting student
research.
--
Ethan Porter
www.ethanporter.com
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