The Merze Tate Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of international relations, law, and politics.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Bassan-Nygate’s dissertation, “Who is Watching? The Consequences of Foreign Criticism”, examines the consequences of foreign criticism via “naming and shaming.” Bassan-Nygate develops a novel theoretical approach to understanding naming and shaming, which focuses on multiple audiences of these behaviors–the shamed state, the shaming state’s domestic population, and the international community. Through a series of surveys in seven democratic states, Bassan-Nygate shows that shaming has positive effects on the reputation of the shaming state, but simultaneously creates backlash in the shamed state, often counter to the goals of the shaming policy. This dissertation sheds new light on our understanding of the costs and benefits of naming and shaming human rights abusers.
Lotem Bassan-Nygate is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 2023 and was previously a postdoctoral research associate at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University and a predoctoral research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative. Lotem’s research lies at the intersection of international relations, political psychology, and experimental methods. Her research has appeared in or has been conditionally accepted by several journals including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Experimental Political Science.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham (Chair) of the University of Maryland, Dr. In Song Kim of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Sebastian Rosato of the University of Notre Dame.