The American Political Science Association (APSA) will present the Leonard D. White Award to Dr. Chad Levinson at the 2019 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition, the world’s largest gathering of political scientists and source for emerging scholarship in the discipline. The $750 prize, supported by the University of Chicago, recognizes the best dissertation on public administration.
Chad Levinson is an Assistant Professor in the Government and International Affairs program at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs. Professor Levinson earned his doctorate in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2017. In the 2017-18 academic year, he was the Stanley Kaplan Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science and the Leadership Studies Program at Williams College. He is also a former Research Fellow in the International Security Program of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Prior to entering graduate school, he worked in the information technology industry designing and programming large-scale databases. He graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s in English Literature, where he also performed in musicals with two future Tony Award winners and the Mayor of Los Angeles. His research and teaching interests center on U.S. Foreign Policy, the presidency, civil society, and information warfare. He is working on a book project, The Credibility Cartel, based on his dissertation.
Here is what the Award Committee had to say about their decision:
Among a very strong set of exciting thesis that highlighted the strength of the field, the committee selected Chad Levinson as this year’s winner of APSA’s White prize. The committee was particularly drawn to this dissertation given its interesting development of the ‘moral subsidy’ argument which was established in theoretically interesting terms. The thesis also displayed varied methodological approaches and exciting empirical work. Taken together, the thesis offered important new insights and a fresh perspective for the field of public administration, especially also in terms of appealing to an international readership.
