Associate Professor Martin Bisgaard and Professor Rune Slothuus, both from the Department of Political Science at Aarhus BSS, have received the 2023 Jack Walker Outstanding Article Award from the world's largest association for political science: the American Political Science Association. The prize is awarded for the best article within the field of political organisations and parties published over the past two years.

Martin Bisgaard and Rune Slothuus received the award for their article How Political Parties Shape Public Opinion in the Real World, which was published in the American Journal of Political Science in 2021. In the article, the Aarhus-based researchers show how voters will follow their party, even when the party suddenly changes its stance on an issue or recommends cutbacks on popular and well-established welfare schemes.

"Receiving this award is a great honour. Although the article is about examples from Danish politics, it’s great to see that our colleagues from abroad can see the value of our study," says Professor Rune Slothuus.

The prize was awarded by a committee headed by Professor Bonnie Meguid from the University of Rochester and will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in August.

“It’s an honour to receive this award from researchers within political organisations and parties, which is a different political science field than ours. We hope that the award will increase awareness of our research,” says Associate Professor Martin Bisgaard.

Further info

The article is based on research funded by a Sapere Aude grant awarded to Rune Slothuus by Independent Research Fund Denmark.

• Read more about the results here ”When parties change their position, voters follow”
• Read the award winning scientific article "How Political Parties Shape Public Opinion in the Real World"
• Read more about Martin Bisgaard and his research on his PURE profile.
• Read more about Rune Slothuus and his research on his PURE-profile.