2027 APSA-IPSA Theodore J. Lowi First Book Award:
Nominations Now Open!
Deadline: December 16, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
The Lowi Award honors the author of a first book in any field of political science that exemplifies qualities of broad ambition, high originality, and intellectual daring, showing promise of having a substantive impact on the overall discipline, regardless of method, specific focus of inquiry or approach to subject.
Throughout a prolific and influential career, Lowi developed new understandings of the relationship of public policy to politics, the influence of institutional arrangements to the exercise of power, the role of ideology in the development of political parties, the relationship of democracy to law, the relevance of concept analysis for theory building, and more. The award carries a cash prize of $750. APSA and IPSA fund the award in alternating years.
Nomination Information
- Eligibility: Nominees do not have to be members of APSA, affiliated with an institution in the United States, or an American citizen in order to be considered for an award. It is not compulsory that authors be political scientists.
Books must have been published in the previous calendar year to be eligible for the current awards cycle (books for the 2027 award must have been published in 2026). Many books contain both a publication date and a copyright date, and these may differ. Eligibility is determined by the earlier of these dates that is printed with the publication information at the front of the book. Edited books are ineligible for nomination.
Books should be single-author works to be eligible for the Lowi Award. For a book to be eligible for the Lowi Award, it must be the first book ever published by the author. If the book is the author’s first book about political science, but not the first book every published, it is not eligible.
- Individuals: Please contact the publisher and ask to have a copy of the nominated book either be uploaded as an e-book in the application or mailed directly to each award committee member.
- Self-nominations are accepted. If you nominate yourself for a book award, you assume responsibility for contacting your publisher and uploading the e-book or having copies of your book sent to the award committee.
- Publishers: After completing and submitting your nomination online through the APSA application portal, please mail a copy of the nominated book directly to each member of the award committee if you are not providing an e-book in the application.
Meet the 2026 Award Recipient, Ning Leng of Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy
Ning Leng is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. She specializes in the political economy of China and Global China. Her first book, Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China (Cambridge University Press, 2025), examines how the Chinese party-state mobilizes businesses for infrastructure development and societal control, as well as the political and economic outcomes that follow. Her other publications examine China’s public service provision, privatization and de-privatization, authoritarian control of government officials, businesspeople, and academics, and public opinion toward China’s economic expansion in the Global South. She is working on a second book on Chinese companies in South America.
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