The Barbara Sinclair Lecture Award is presented annually to honor achievement in promoting understanding of the U.S. Congress and legislative politics.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Dr. Alan Wiseman is a leading scholar of legislative institutions. Dr. Wiseman has built a distinguished research program centered on the concept of legislative effectiveness—the ability of lawmakers to advance their policy priorities through the legislative process. In collaboration with Craig Volden, he created the Legislative Effectiveness Score, a novel way to measure how successful legislators are at making laws, which he and Volden introduced in their award-winning book Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers. This landmark work, alongside his broader body of scholarship, has provided new insight into representation, policymaking, and electoral accountability.
Beyond his own scholarship, Dr. Wiseman has played a pivotal role in strengthening the broader intellectual community devoted to the study of legislatures. Through the Center for Effective Lawmaking, he has created an enduring institutional platform that disseminates data, convenes a wide range of scholars in various stages of their careers, and fosters a highly inclusive and collaborative research environment. His mentorship of emerging academics and his commitment to diversifying the discipline have had lasting impact, as has his engagement with practitioners, bringing legislators into dialogue with researchers and ensuring that scholarly insights inform real-world governance. By illuminating the value of legislative work and articulating a positive vision of effective lawmaking, Dr. Wiseman’s contributions stand as a fitting tribute to the legacy of Dr. Barbara Sinclair and exemplify the highest ideals of the discipline.
Alan E. Wiseman is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Economy, and Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University. He served as Associate Provost of Strategic Projects at Vanderbilt from 2024-2026, and Chair of the Department of Political Science from 2018-2024. He received his undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and his Ph.D. in Business (Political Economics) from Stanford University. His primary research and teaching interests are American political institutions, with a substantive focus on congressional and legislative politics, and regulatory policymaking. He is the author or coauthor of several articles that have appeared in outlets including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. He is the coauthor (with Craig Volden) of Legislative Effectiveness in the Untied States Congress: The Lawmakers (2014), which received the 2015 Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize and the 2015 Gladys M. Kammerer Award. He is the co-director (along with Craig Volden) of the Center for Effective Lawmaking (www.thelawmakers.org).
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Tom Kahn (Co-Chair) of American University, Ann Burke (Co-Chair) of the American Political Science Association, Michael Minta of the University of Minnesota, Matthew Green of Catholic University, and Diana Dwyre of California State University, Chico