A jury consisting of Aysegul Aydin (University of Colorado - Boulder), Karin Dyrstad (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), and Brian J. Phillips (University of Essex) has awarded this year’s Nils Petter Gleditsch Article of the Year to Jason Klocek, Hyun Jeong Ha, and Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo for their article entitled “Regime change and religious discrimination after the Arab uprisings.” (JPR 60:3). All articles published in Volume 60 of the JPR were eligible for the award. Articles were judged based on their theoretical contribution, methodological sophistication, and substantive relevance. The award-winning article combines careful theorizing on an under-researched, highly relevant topic with an impressive research design. In their article, Klocek, Ha, and Sumaktoyo develop a nuanced argument about societal versus government discrimination in political transitions, which they test using sophisticated quantitative analysis in the context of the Arab Spring and further validate with in-depth ethnography based on seven months of field research in Egypt. The article presents interesting findings on an important topic to increase the scholarly understanding of outbidding. The theory and empirics help sort out two important mechanisms, society-based and government-based discrimination. The qualitative research is on a fascinating and relatively recent case, Coptic Christians in Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The conclusions have implications for peace and conflict studies and beyond. In addition to the winner article, the jury has identified two runners-up. First, in her article “Motivations of diaspora support in homeland civil conflict" (JPR 60:2), Lucia Bird significantly advances the research agenda on diaspora support by developing and testing a new argument with a novel, a highly complex dataset and impressive empirical analysis. Second, in their article “Descriptive representation and conflict reduction: Evidence from India’s Maoist rebellion”, Aidan Milliff and Drew Stommes (JPR 60:5) address a normatively important question by conducting a highly sophisticated empirical analysis on an understudied case. Both articles seek to advance our understanding of policy-relevant phenomena using state of the art empirical designs. The award is USD 1,000. Honourable mention goes to the runners-up: Lucia Bird (2023) Motivations of diaspora support in homeland civil conflict. JPR 60(2): 226-242. Aidan Milliff & Drew Stommes (2023) Descriptive representation and conflict reduction: Evidence from India’s Maoist rebellion. JPR 60(5): 807-822.
