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Leo Strauss Award 

Nominations for the 2024 APSA Awards have closed.



The Strauss Award honors the best doctoral dissertation in the field of political philosophy.

The award was developed by former students of Strauss' who sought to recognize his extraordinary influence on generations of students and his contributions to the field of political philosophy.  He was a major figure in the department of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1949 to 1967.  The award is presented at the APSA Annual Meeting and carries a cash prize of $750.  

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.

    Dissertations must have been successfully defended within the previous two calendar years (dissertations for the 2024 award must be defended in 2022 or 2023).

    Self-nominations are accepted. Nominations from non-PhD departments and institutions are also welcome if the nominee is currently employed there.

    APSA will accept only one nomination for the Strauss Award per school or political science department.

Leo Strauss Award Committee


Year Author Dissertation Submitted by

2023

Sara Hassani

Nazli Konya

Cloistered Infernos: The Politics of Self-Immolation in the Persian Belt

The Inappropriable People of Gezi: Refusal, Protest, Desire

New School for Social Research

Cornell University

2022

Shuk Ying Chan

Siddhant Issar

Postcolonial Global Justice

Thinking with Black Lives Matter: Towards a Critical Theory of Racial Capitalism

Princeton University

University of Massachusetts Amherst

2021

David Lowry Pressly

Being Accountable: Privacy, Self, and Society

Harvard University

2020

Elena Gambino

Presence in Our Own Land: Second Wave Feminism and the Lesbian Body Politic

University of Minnesota

2020

Tejas Parasher

Self-Rule and the State in Indian Political Thought, 1880-1950

University of Chicago

2019

Adam Lebovitz

Colossus: Constitutional Theory in America and France, 1776-1799

Harvard University

2018 Tae-Yeoun Keum Plato and the Mythic Tradition of Political Thought Harvard University

2017

Kevin Duong

Democratic Terror: Redemptive Violence and the Formation of Nineteenth Century France

Cornell University

2016

Matthew Longo

Sovereignty in the Age of Securitization: A Study on Borders and Bordering in the United States after 9/11

Yale University

2015

Teresa Bejan

Mere Civility: Toleration and its Limits in Early Modern England and America

Yale University

2014

Adam Sandel

The Place of Prejudice

University of Oxford

2013

Alin Fumurescu

Compromise and Representation: A Split History of Early Modernity

Indiana University, Bloomington  

2012

Alison McQueen

Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times

Cornell University

2011

Daniel Lee

Popular Sovereignty, Roman Law and the Civilian Foundations of the Constitutional State in Early Modern Political Thought

Princeton University

2010

Joseph Mazor

A Liberal Theory of Natural Resource Property Rights

Harvard University

2009

Robert Alan Sparling

Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project

University of Toronto

2008

Leigh Jenco

Individuals, Institutions, and Political Change: The Political Theory of Zhang Shizhao

University of Chicago

2007

Lars Tønder

Experiences of tolerance: Immanence, Transcendence, Hilaritas

The Johns Hopkins University

2006

Xavier Marquez

The Stranger's Knowledge: Political Knowledge in Plato’s Statesman

University of Notre Dame

2005

Douglas Casson

Liberating Judgment: John Locke and the Politics of Probability

Duke University

2004

Christina Tarnopolsky

Plato and the Politics of Shame

Harvard University

2003

Arash Abizadeh

Rhetoric, the Passions, and Difference in Discursive Democracy

Harvard University

2002

Andreas Kalyvas

The Politics of the Extraordinary: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt

Columbia University

2001

Christopher Nathan Dugan

Reason's Wake: Political Education in Plato's Laws

University of California, San Diego


We are continually grateful for the contributions from APSA members and friends that make our work possible. Your donation helps continue the Strauss Award for future scholars researching political philosophy. Thank you for your support of APSA and scholars across the discipline.

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