Department of Political Science

The Indiana University Bloomington Department of Political Science is very pleased to acknowledge Anthony DeMattee, one of our recent PhDs who is currently on a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University that is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Dr. DeMattee’s dissertation recently earned three awards from the American Political Science Association, which is an incredible accomplishment (and quite possibly a record!). Dr. DeMattee’s dissertation explores the regulation of nongovernmental “civil society organizations”, in particular those related to human rights, with a special focus on the regions of the Caribbean and East Africa.  

In the first, the Leonard D. White Award for the best dissertation in the field of public administration, the award committee noted "This is a project that will be a must-read for students of developmental governance and human rights who seek a deeper institutional-based understanding of the relationships between the state and non-government organizations.”

In the second, the Edward S. Corwin Award for the best dissertation in the field of public law, the award committee noted that “[t]his remarkable dissertation uses five different methods, and data collected from 17 countries, over a time span ranging from 1872 to 2019 to explain 'the conditions under which governments enact and enforce permissive and restrictive legal provisions’” and expects this “great contribution” to be published in leading outlets very quickly.

The third “best dissertation” award was granted by the Human Rights section of APSA. The Award committee noted that “the committee was especially impressed with the depth and technical sophistication of DeMattee's analysis and with his willingness to embrace a strikingly diverse range of methods to answer the questions that motivated the project.”

We are very proud of the work that Dr. DeMattee did while at IUB, and we are looking forward to seeing what he does next. He is on the academic job market this year, so those with lines in public policy, public law, public administration, human rights, and related areas should definitely take a long look at his work. More information about Dr. DeMattee and his award-winning scholarship can be found at his website.