PSAI

Each year, a prize is awarded for the best paper presented at the previous PSAI Annual Conference. The award will take the form of a cheque for €400.

The paper must be original, unpublished and presented by the candidate(s) at the conference. It must be outstanding and worthy of publication in a leading political science journal. Panel conveners, chairs and paper givers can nominate papers for this prize.

Nominations should be sent to Liam Weeks (l.weeks@ucc.ie) by 31 December. Nominations should include a copy of the paper presented (max. 9,000 words, with a consistent referencing style), and names of the author(s), their institute affiliation, and their email address. The editors of Irish Political Studies will work in conjunction with the editorial board to review all papers submitted and to reach agreement on a winner.

Prize Recipient

The 2023 Elizabeth Meehan Prize was awarded to Alan Duggan (University of Stirling and University of Nottingham), Michele Crepaz (QUB) and Liam Kneafsey (TCD) for their paper “Going negative when spoiled for choice? Destabilising and boomerang effects of negative political messaging in multiparty systems with multimember districts.”

Previous Winners

The 2022 Elizabeth Meehan Prize was awarded to Nicolai Berk (Humboldt University Berlin) for his paper “The Causal Effect of Media Frames on Issue Definitions.”

The 2021 Elizabeth Meehan Prize was awarded to Stefan Muller and Aidan Regan (UCD) for their paper “The Compass of Irish Politics is Moving to the Left.”

The 2020 Elizabeth Meehan Prize was awarded to Constantine Boussalis (TCD) and Travis Coan (Exeter) for their paper “Facing the Electorate: Computational Approaches to the Study of Nonverbal Communication and Voter Impression Formation”

2019  Elizbeth Meehan Prize was not awarded

The 2018 Elizabeth Meehan Prize was awarded to Dr. Thomas Chadefaux (TCD), for his paper “The Price is Right: Market Anticipations of the Cost of War”

The 2017 Irish Political Studies Prize was awarded to Dr. Liam Weeks (UCC),  Dr Mícheál O Fathartaigh (Dublin Business School), Dr. Alexander Herzog (Clemson University), and Dr. Slava Mikhaylov (University of Essex), for “A Quantitative Analysis of the Dáil Debates on the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.”

The 2015 Irish Political Studies Prize went to Dr Jane Suiter (DCU) for her paper “Mobilisation or normalisation: network publics on Twitter”

The 2014 Irish Political Studies Prize went to Dr. Sean McGraw, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame for his paper “Ideological Flexibility: A Dynamic Understanding of Irish Electoral Politics.”

The 2013 Irish Political Studies Prize was awarded to Dr. Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan, Department of Government, UCC for her paper “The Troika in Ireland”.

*The prize was inaugurated in 2013. It was originally called the Irish Political Studies Prize, and awarded for the best paper at the conference of that year (i.e., the 2013 Prize was awarded for the best paper at the 2013 Annual Conference). Starting in 2017, the PSAI began awarding the prize for the best paper at the previous year’s conference (i.e., the 2017 Prize was awarded for the best paper at the 2016 Annual Conference). Starting in 2018, the prize was renamed the Elizabeth Meehan Prize.”