Professor of Government Dustin Tingley and PhD alumni Harry Oppenheimer have both been named American Political Science Association (APSA) award winners for their fantastic respective work.
Dustin Tingley and his co-author Alexander F. Gazmararian – a doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University – have been awarded the APSA STEP Section Don K. Price Award for their book “Uncertain Futures: How to Unlock the Climate Impasse (The Politics of Climate Change)”.
The book asks why the world is not moving fast enough to solve the climate crisis, and proposes solutions to make more credible promises that build support for the energy transition. It examines the perspectives of workers, communities, and companies, arguing that the climate impasse is best understood by viewing the problem from the ground up.
With 14 other remarkable books nominated, Dustin and Alex’s work stood out. The selection committee was impressed by the book’s strength in carefully triangulating a comprehensive analysis across a wide-range of diverse data to generate theoretical advancements and highlight actionable insights to overcome the political and social barriers impeding progress.
The selection committee feedback highlighted the authors’ diligence in “combining sound theory along with multiple data sources and sharp analyses [which] boosts our confidence in the proposed actionable steps. They are clear on what key stakeholders at the center of the climate debate should do going forward.” Moreover, the book was independently nominated by multiple scholars for its excellence. Per one nominee, the book “offers by far the most ambitious, theoretically rigorous, and empirically careful solution to the puzzle of political unwillingness to address climate change.”
Harry Oppenheimer, class of 2023, was awarded the APSA International Collaboration Section’s 2024 Best Dissertation Award for his work titled “Essays on Digital Interdependence and Globalization”.
His dissertation presents three papers on the interaction between international security and digital interdependence, intending to deepen our understanding of digital globalization, cybersecurity, weaponized interdependence, and the impact of international security on global networks.
The first paper theorizes that digital interdependence creates security externalities and tests whether international security influences how networks route data between borders. The second addresses how weaponized interdependence affects digital globalization and openness. Similar to economic openness, private actors shape digital openness by agreeing to send data directly to networks in other states. The final paper argues that digital interdependence creates incentives to cooperate through state-building with targeted developmental assistance. It examines how states develop cybersecurity strategies, either by delegating cyber responsibilities to political and security bureaucracies or by delegating security responsibilities to information technology bureaucracies.
The International Collaboration (IC) Section of APSA works to promote and disseminate research in and teaching of all facets of international collaboration and to encourage the interchange of ideas about international collaboration within the IC Section, and with our disciplines, practitioners, and interested persons. The Best Dissertation Award is given for the best dissertation on international collaboration for a PhD awarded in the calendar year 2023 and was determined by a panel comprised of professors from Texas A&M University, Wellesley College, and Royal Holloway – University of London.
Harry is currently a postdoctoral fellow in technology and international security at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) based in Washington, D.C. He will however be starting as an assistant professor at the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy this year.