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Publius: The Journal of Federalism Distinguished Scholar Award

In Cooperation with RC28: Research Committee on Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance of the International Political Science Association.

This award is presented to one distinguished scholar at each biennial business meeting of RC28-Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance during each biennial congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

The award is given to living, recognized scholars, including retired scholars, whose publications continue to make significant and major contributions to our understanding and appreciation of the history, theory, and/or practice of federalism in single or multiple countries and/or transnational arrangements, such as the European Union. The award shall be for distinguished work done specifically on federalism and federations.

Award Recipients

Jill Vickers (2023), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired Emeritus Chancellor’s Professor at Carleton University in Ottawa where she taught political science, women’s studies, and Canadian studies over three decades. She is co/author or editor of ten books and more than 55 articles that explore how gender, race, nations, and nationalisms interact with national constitutions and architectures, notably federalism. She pioneered gender and federalism research by organizing workshops and editing books and special issues of Publius: The Journal of Federalism and Politics and Gender. Her most recent book, with Joan Grace and Cheryl N. Collier, is the 2020 Handbook on Gender, Diversity and Federalism (Edward Elgar). She remains an active researcher publishing recent articles exploring how the interaction between gender and federalism affects the many components of family law across federations, including “Regulating Family Law in Federations: The Impact of De/Centralization, Religion, and International Treaties on Abortion and Child Marriage Policies” in Publius: The Journal of Federalism 53:1 (Winter 2023).

Professor Vickers is the recipient of Carleton’s Dunton Research Lectureship (2005/6) award and the American Political Science Association’s Mildred Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award in Canadian Politics (2010). The Jill Vickers Prize, established in 2002 by the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA), is awarded annually for the best paper on gender and politics. A past president of the Canadian Association of University Professors and CPSA, she also was active in the Canadian Women’s Movement as a founder and president of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women and Parliamentarian of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.

Thomas O. Hueglin (2020), a retired professor of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University. He received his Ph.D. from St. Gall University, Switzerland, in 1977 and completed his Habilitation at Konstanz University, Germany, in 1983. He moved to Canada in 1983 and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University (Kingston). He joined the Wilfrid Laurier faculty in 1985. In 1992, he was invited to write a research paper for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. During 1994-95, he was research professor at the Mannheim Center for European Social Research in Germany. He has held shorter visiting research professorships, as well, at the University of Western Australia (Perth) in 2012 and Darmstadt University (Germany) in 2013. In 2014, he served as a UN adviser to the Constitutional Drafting Commission of the Republic of Yemen. He is well known for his work on Althusius, as reflected in “Johannes Althusius: Medieval Constitutionalist or Modern Federalist?” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 9:4 (1979): 9-41 and Early Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World: Althusius on Community and Federalism (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999). He is coauthor, with Alan Fenna, of an important comparative text, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Inquiry, 2d ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2015). His work on “treaty federalism” also has been highly regarded, such as “From Constitutional to Treaty Federalism: A Comparative Perspective,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 30:4 (2000): 137-153 and “Treaty Federalism as a Model for Policy Making: Comparing Canada and the European Union,” Canadian Public Administration 56:2 (2013): 185-202. He also has published “Yet the Age of Anarchism?” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 15: 2 (1985): 101-112 and “Federalism at the Crossroads: Old Meanings, New Significance,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 36: 2 (2003): 275-294. In 2021, he published Federalism in Canada: Contested Concepts and Uneasy Balances (University of Toronto Press).

Arthur Benz (2018), Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Dr. Benz is Professor of Political Science at Technische Universität Darmstadt. He was previously affiliated with the University of Hagen, the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Konstanz, and the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. He has held visiting appointments at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, Tongij University of Shanghai, China, and the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz. In 2003-04, he was a member of the Joint Bundestag-Bundesrat Commission on the Reform of the German Federation. In 2007, he received the John G. Diefenbaker Award. Among his numerous publications are Constitutional Politics in Multilevel Government (2016), Federal Dynamics (ed. with J. Broschek, 2013), Politik in Mehrebenensystemen (2009), Kooperative Verwaltung (1994), Horizontale Politikverflechtung(with F. W. Scharpf and R. Zintl, 1992), Modernisierung der Staatsorganisation (with J. J. Hesse, 1990), Föderalismus als dynamisches System(1985), and articles in European Political Science ReviewJournal of European Public PolicyPublius: The Journal of FederalismWest European Politics, German Politics, and Regional and Federal Studies.

John Kincaid (2016), Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA. He is the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service and Director of the Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. He also is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and recipient of the Daniel J. Elazar Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations of the American Political Science Association and of the Donald Stone Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management of the American Society of Public Administration. He received his Ph.D. in 1981 from Temple University, Philadelphia.

He has served as Editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism (1981-2006); Senior Editor of the Global Dialogue on Federalism (2001-2015), a joint project of the Forum of Federations and International Association of Centers for Federal Studies; Editor of a series of books on the Governments and Politics of the American States; President of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies (1998-2005); President of the Southwestern Political Science Association (1993-1994); Executive Director (1988-1994) and Director of Research (1986-1988) of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Washington, D.C.; and Assistant and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas (1979-1994). In 1972-1973, he was Vice President of the Pentagon Papers Fund for the Defense of Human and Civil Liberties–the legal-defense organization for Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the Pentagon Papers Trial in Los Angeles.

He is the author of various works on federalism and intergovernmental relations in such journals as Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Regional & Federal Studies, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Polity, PS: Political Science and Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, Journal of Law and Politics, Rutgers Law Review, SMU Law Review, Public Administration Review, and New England Economic Review. He is the editor of Political Culture, Public Policy and the American States (1981) and Federalism (4 vols. 2011) and coeditor of Competition among States and Local Governments: Efficiency and Equity in American Federalism (1991), The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism (2000), Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries (2005), Interaction in Federal Systems (2008), Local Government in Federal Systems (2008), The Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism (2013), Intergovernmental Relations in Federal Systems: Comparative Structures and Dynamics (2015), Political Parties and Civil Society in Federal Countries (2015), and Courts in Federal Countries: Federalists or Unitarists? (2017).

He has lectured and consulted on issues of federalism, intergovernmental relations, state and local government, and decentralization throughout the United States as well as in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Iceland, India, Iraq, Japan, Maldives, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.