The Harold D. Lasswell Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public policy.
Michael Lerner is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Michael studies comparative environmental politics with a broad interest in the challenges and strategies related to adopting timely policy responses to environmental change. His research focuses primarily on policy advocacy, including corporate lobbying on climate change, transnational advocacy networks, and the innovation and diffusion of environmental policy. Michael completed his PhD at the University of Michigan and has published his work in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other peer-reviewed journals.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Dr. Lerner’s dissertation, “Green Catalysts? The Impact of Transnational Advocacy on Environmental Policy Leadership,” was particularly noteworthy, even within this distinguished field of nominated work. Dr. Lerner evaluates of the role of transnational actors, including international NGOs and multinational corporations to influence policy adoption. The author applied network analysis and other tools to a novel dataset of environmental policy leadership. He showed that multinational corporations slow policy adoption in developed countries, while international NGOs catalyze policy adoption in developing countries.
This work could hardly be more timely or important. In showcasing the ways transnational advocates shape policy in differing institutional contexts, this dissertation provides an important contribution to the policy diffusion and adoption literatures, and to the environmental policy literature as well. We found the assembled data impressive in scope (185 countries over 70 years) and detail. This work will be used widely and built upon by policy scholars in the years ahead.
APSA thanks the Policy Studies Organization for its support of the award and the committee members for their service: Dr. Harold Pollack (chair) of the University of Chicago, Dr. Paasha Mahdavi of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Ana Catalano Weeks of the University of Bath.
