The John Gaus Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration. Lael Keiser will deliver the Gaus Lecture on Friday, September 6, 2024 at 6:30pm EDT as part of the APSA Annual Meeting.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Professor Keiser has made an extraordinary impact on the study of policy implementation and the administration of public programs. Taking a multi-institutional approach, she excavates and illuminates what takes place at the intersection of bureaucratic institutions within contemporary democratic systems nudged by interest groups, elected officials, and other political actors. Her nuanced appreciation for program design and its impact on street-level personnel, contributes to a deeper understanding of representative bureaucracy, policy adoption, and policy implementation.
Professor Keiser is primarily known for examining the role of gender and race in representative bureaucracy. Her contributions in this field of study have been ground-breaking. A nomination letter signed by eleven public administration scholars states that her seminal work on gender and representative bureaucracy (APSR 2002) “was not just the first quantitative study to demonstrate that female representation in the bureaucracy was associated with positive benefits to female clients, but established the theory for when and where gender representation in the bureaucracy was likely to have policy impacts.” This article has been cited more than 800 times (according to Google Scholar), with its findings replicated across numerous policy areas in many countries. Her research projects continue to push at the edges of the representative bureaucracy literature by examining emergent topics, such as the impacts of administrative burdens and automated systems, while deploying a wide range of methodologies, including survey experiments.
Professor Keiser’s research contributions have been recognized in numerous ways. For example, she is currently a Fellow with the National Academy of Public Administration and has received many awards, including the Herbert Simon Award from the Midwest Political Science Association for significant contributions to the study of bureaucracy and the Rita Mae Kelly Award from the American Society for Public Administration for distinguished research on women’s issues. She is also a three-time recipient of the Herbert Kaufman Award for the best paper on public administration from the American Political Science Association. These awards indicate she is at the leading edge of her field. Her service contributions have also been remarkable. She is currently President-Elect of the Public Management Research Association, following a four-year term on the Board of Directors. She has also served as President of the Public Administration Section of the American Political Science Association and President of the Midwest Public Administration Caucus of the Midwest Political Science Association. These service roles indicate a remarkable and sustained professional commitment to both public administration and political science. She is thus highly deserving of the John Gaus Award.
Dr. Lael Keiser is professor and director of the Harry S Truman School of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. She received her PhD in Political Science in 1996 from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her research focuses on policy implementation and the administration of public programs. She serves on the editorial boards of Public Administration Review and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
She has current research projects on representative bureaucracy, the automation of public service delivery and public trust, administrative burden, and policy implementation among street-level bureaucrats. Her research has been published in both political science and public administration journals such as Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and the Policy Studies Journal.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Brian N. Williams (Chair) of the University of Georgia, Dr. K. Jurée Capers of Georgia State University, and Dr. Craig W. Thomas of the University of Washington.