MACKENZIE BOOK PRIZE 2022/23 - SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

We are pleased to announce the short-listed books for our Mackenzie Book Prize 2022/23.

A huge thank you to all those who nominated a book for this esteemed prize that celebrates the distinctive contribution these works have made to advancing Political Studies.

From a whopping 18 entries, we are grateful to our brilliant judging panel to have been able to hone this down to a shortlist of five:

Chair – Prof. Sarah Childs, The University of Edinburgh

Dr Jasmine Gani, University of St Andrew

Prof Charles Lees, City, University of London

Prof Diana Stirbu, London Metropolitan University

Prof Colin Tyler, University of Hull

The winning entry will be announced during the conference at the PSA’s Annual Assembly alongside our other 22/23 academic prizes. If you are a PSA member, please do come along and cheer your colleagues on!

Pensions Imperilled: The Political Economy of Private Pensions Provision in the UK

By Craig Berry

This book offers a political economy perspective on the development of private pensions, focusing specifically on how policy elites have sought to respond to perceived crises of demographic change, under-saving, and fund deficits, and in doing so have absorbed imperatives to subject individuals to a market-led regime under the influence of neoliberal ideology. It also presents a nuanced account of the extent to which the state acts to anchor the process of pensions rematerialization and, crucially, concludes by outlining a coherent and radical programme of progressive pensions reform.

Englishness: The Political Force Transforming Britain

By Ailsa Henderson & Richard Wyn Jones

English nationalism has come to be regarded as an explanation for the vote to Leave the European Union. Subsequent opinion polls have raised doubts about the extent of continuing English commitment to the Union of the United Kingdom itself. In this book Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones draw on data from the Future of England Survey to make new arguments about the nature of English nationalism, the sense of grievance about England’s place within the United Kingdom and how this is transforming British politics.

State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union

By Michael Keating

This book argues that the UK should be understood as a plurinational union in which the key elements of demos, telos, and ethos are contested. With the weakening of the British national project, tensions between the centre and the peripheral nations have grown, greatly exacerbated by Brexit. Since devolution, the UK has struggled to come to terms with the new constitutional reality or embrace the idea of shared sovereignty. The peoples of these islands need to find new constitutional concepts for living together now that traditional ideas of national sovereignty have lost their relevance.

Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint

By Matthew Kramer

This book provides a novel and sophisticated justificatory foundation for the principle of freedom of expression. As the book argues, such a principle imposes general duties that are binding always and everywhere on every system of governance. The book ties the principle to an ideal of governmental self-restraint, and it shows how that ideal connects to the paramount moral responsibility of every system of governance.

Democratic Design

By Michael Saward

Democracy faces stern tests around the world. Democratic Design argues that to respond effectively and creatively, democrats need to work with a versatile new toolkit of concepts and institutions. The book assembles this toolkit — the democratic design framework — through an original blend of design thinking and democratic theory and practice.