Hans Daalder Prize

After the Graduate Student Conference participants are asked to nominate a Paper they felt was outstanding in its originality and academic excellence.

Participants should email prizes@ecpr.eu with the name of the author, Paper number and title. 

To be eligible for consideration:

• Each nomination must be supported by two conference participants
• Papers must be nominated by someone other than the author; participants cannot nominate their own Paper
• Nominations will only be accepted for Papers submitted electronically to the conference through MyECPR
• Nominations will only be accepted from scholars from a full ECPR member institution.

The last prize awarded was for a Paper presented at the 2016 Graduate Student Conference in Tartu.

2016 prize jury

• Ólafur Harðarson University of Iceland (Chair)
• Kris Deschouwer Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Petri Koikkalainen University of Lapland
• Anna M. Sroka University of Warsaw

2016 – Svenja Krauss

The winner of the 2016 prize was Svenja Krauss, for her paper Stability Through Control? The Influence of Coalition Agreements on the Stability of Coalition Cabinets.

In the words of our Jury: 'Svenja’s Paper makes an important contribution to the existing scholarly literature on coalition government. We consider it to be original, relevant, theoretically sound, and based on impressive use of rich empirical data. It is well written and structured, and methodologically strong.'

Svenja is currently working towards a PhD at Humboldt University Berlin. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow for the DFG research project Bringing policies back in: Explaining payoff allocation in coalition governments at the University of Bamberg (October 2014 – March 2015) and the University of Hamburg (April 2015 – October 2016). Svenja gained her BA in Political Science at the University of Mannheim, and her MA, also in Political Science, from the University of Bamberg.

Her main research topics are Comparative Politics, Parties, Coalition Governments, and Quantitative Methods.

2014 – Christiane Barnickel

The winner of the 2014 prize was Christiane Barnickel for her paper Legitimation Policies in the Course of European Integration: Post-democracy on the Rise?

From our prize jury: 'Christiane's topic is well-chosen in terms of its topicality, and has broad relevance to the concerns of the discipline. It offers a coherent and well-informed discussion of the literature, supported by an account of the contextual background and the presentation of a theoretically rich set of arguments balanced by the presentation of the empirical findings. The paper is well constructed and focused, outlining its methodology and conclusions that suggest a rich vein of research for future exploration.'

Christiane Barnickel is a teaching and research assistant at the chair of European Studies at the European-University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. She is writing her PhD thesis on the post-democratisation of self-legitimation strategies of political actors. Her research focuses on democracy and legitimacy, discourse studies, and national parliaments in Europe.

2012 – Katrin Schermann & Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik

The winners of the 2012 prize were Katrin Schermann and Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, for their paper Linking Election Pledges to Policy Outcome – The Austrian Case. From our prize jury: 'The paper is well constructed and laudably well focused. While it could be improved in terms of theory, it outlines relevant hypotheses and attempts are made to test the hypotheses empirically. The methodology of the paper is well elaborated and easy to replicate. The authors succeed in showing, within the limits of their approach of course, that in certain institutional conditions the likelihood of pledge fulfilment increases.'

Katrin Schermann works at the Department of Government at the University of Vienna. She is a researcher in the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) team. In 2010, she joined the project Political Economy of Reforms (SFB 884) at the University of Mannheim. She is writing her PhD thesis on party pledge fulfilment in Austria. Katrin's research interests include coalition politics, party competition, and the political process of reform making. Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik is a researcher at the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) at the University of Vienna’s Department of Government. His research focuses on parties, party competition, coalition politics, political appointments, and patronage. His publications include articles in Governance, West European Politics, Party Politics, Political Studies, The Journal of Legislative Studies, and Local Government Studies.

2010 – Rahul Prabhakar

The winner of the 2010 prize was Rahul Prabhakar, for his paper Globalized Finance and National Regulation. 

Rahul is a student in International Relations and Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford. He earned an AB in Government magna cum laude from Harvard University in June 2009, and graduated as a John Harvard Scholar (top 5% of class) and member of Phi Beta Kappa. His research interests are in the politics of international finance and global regulatory cooperation, and he hopes to begin his doctoral studies in autumn 2011. He is from Long Island, New York.

2008 – Mette Bakken, Didac Queralt

Joint winners of the inaugural Hans Daalder Prize, for papers presented at the 2008 Graduate Student Conference, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The prize was presented by Hans Daalder himself. 

Mette Bakken presented the paper Electoral Systems and Party Systems: Which is the Cause and Which is the Consequence? Didac Queralt presented Learning the Mechanical Effect of Electoral Systems.