The Charles E. Merriam Award is presented biennially by the American Political Science Association (APSA) in recognition of a person whose published work and career represent a significant contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.
Citation from the Award Committee:
We are pleased to present Dr. Mona Lena Krook with the 2025 Charles E. Merriam Award, recognizing “a significant contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.”
Her scholarly work uses a global comparative approach to the study of women, gender, and politics, with emphasis on representation and electoral systems, in particular electoral quotas for women. Krook’s first book, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide (2009) won the APSA’s Victoria Schuck Award in 2010 for the best book on women and politics. In 2019, it was further honored with a George H. Hallett Award from the APSA Representation and Electoral Systems Section, recognizing a book published in the previous 10 years ago that has made a lasting contribution to the literature on representation and electoral systems. In 2015, she also received the 2015 Emerging Scholar Award from the APSA section on Elections, Public Opinion and Voting. Most recently, Krook has initiated major new research on violence against women, with special attention to attacks, intimidation and harassment of women active in politics, as discussed in her 2020 book, Violence against Women in Politics.
In addition to her scholarly contributions, Professor Krook has used her expertise to advance and inform policy related to women and politics, with special emphasis on gender quotas and violence against women. Krook has been actively involved in helping disseminate her research findings and contribute to the art of government and public policy making throughout the world by writing policy reports, providing public testimony and doing training. Krook consults widely, with women’s organizations, national governments/legislatures, and with regional and international organizations. Krook has used her research on gender quotas, for example, to discuss on consult with governments and organizations on the possibility and effectiveness on other forms of electoral quotas, such as disability quotas in politics, as well as other supportive measures to advance the political representation of people with disabilities. The Merriam Award is a particularly fitting tribute to Professor Krook given her extensive contributions to real-world governance. We are delighted to be able to recognize Professor Krook’s outstanding work with this year’s Charles E. Merriam Award.
Mona Lena Krook is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Women & Politics Ph.D. Program at Rutgers University. Her pathbreaking work on gender quotas, violence against women in politics, and women and decision-making has shaped emerging research agendas in political science. Over the last 20 years, she has drawn on her academic research in sustained collaborations with international organizations, governments, and civil society actors to advance women’s full and equal political participation around the globe. Through talks, trainings, and written reports, Krook has advised stakeholders on how to design and implement gender quotas more effectively and shared evidence vital for countering common objections to quotas. She has helped develop international definitions of violence against women in politics, as well as design research and data collection strategies to document this type of violence. She has catalogued and shared emerging solutions, most notably through the global #NotTheCost campaign to stop violence against women in politics with the National Democratic Institute. In recent years, Krook has devised various tools for collecting data on women in decision-making. She has also drafted international frameworks for advancing gender parity in politics: General Recommendation No. 40 for the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as the outcome document of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Global Conference of Women Parliamentarians. Krook is currently working with gender and democracy practitioners to collect and post public documents on these topics recently removed from U.S. government websites.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Kathryn Sikkink (Chair) of Harvard University, Dr. Elizabeth Saunders of Columbia University, and Dr. John Griffin of Georgetown University