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Seven research projects received funding through the 2018 Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics.
“The Catt Center received a record 94 proposals from disciplines as varied as political science, history, theatre, queer studies, women’s studies and communication. Choosing from such a varied and high-quality pool of proposals is both rewarding and challenging,” said Karen M. Kedrowski, director of Iowa State University’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, which sponsors the annual awards.
The selection committee, composed of 19 faculty members, blind-reviewed the proposals and chose three projects as winners of the Catt Prize and four projects for honorable mention awards. Each of the winning prize proposals will receive $2,000. Honorable mention awards will receive $1,000 each.
Prize winners for 2018 are:
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Rachel Bernhard, Andrew Eggers and Marko Klašnja
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Debra Lynn Leiter and Beth Miller Vonnahme
Debra Lynn Leiter, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Beth Miller Vonnahme, associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, for “Can Women Soften the Far Right? How Leadership Gender Affects Far Right Party Evaluations and Reaction to Scandal.” The study will examine the relationship between leadership gender, scandal and ideological party family on party reputation to help understand how far-right parties have broadened their electoral support. The award will be used to recruit and conduct a pilot study with Mechanical Turk.
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Alexandria Wilson
Alexandria Wilson, doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Florida, for “From Violence to Backlash: An Examination of Feminist Opposition to Anti-Gender Movements in Central and Eastern Europe.” The study will examine how women’s organizations in Central and Eastern Europe resist anti-gender campaigns and continue their activism in an environment of gender backlash. The award will be used to fund two months of fieldwork in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland.
Recipients of honorable mention awards are:
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Lindsay Benstead
Lindsay J. Benstead, associate professor of political science at Portland State University, for “More Than Numbers: Women’s Political Representation in the Arab World.” The study examines whether the six-fold increase in women’s presence in Arab parliaments and local councils from 1997 to 2018 improves women’s substantive and symbolic representation. The award will be used to hire a research assistant to provide support with research, the literature review and editing.
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Jennifer Cryer
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Cindy Koenig Richards
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Amanda Roberti
The annual research prize has been funded since 1994 by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics through private donations. Since 1994, the Catt Center has awarded $110,500 to 110 research projects.
Members of the 2018 Catt Prize Selection Committee are Iowa State faculty members David Andersen, Tessa Ditonto, Jonathan Hassid, Mark Nieman, David Peterson, Kelly Shaw, Mack Shelley, Alex Tuckness and Robert Urbatsch, all with the Department of Political Science; Amy Bix and Stacy Cordery, Department of History; Daniela Dimitrova and Kelly Winfrey, Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication; Denise Oles-Acevedo, Department of English; and Kedrowski; as well as Dianne Bystrom, Catt Center director emerita. Andrew Green, professor of political science at Central College in Pella, Iowa; Jayme Renfro, assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa; and Ben Warner, associate professor of communication and co-director of the Political Communication Institute at the University of Missouri-Kansas City also served on the committee, which was assisted by Sue Cloud, communications specialist for the Catt Center.