This award is named to honor the memory of Hayward R. Alker, former President of the International Studies Association and John A. McCone Chair in International Security at the School of International Relations, University of Southern California. Alker passed away on August 24, 2007. From his humanistic critique of mainstream political science, to the role he played in the development and promotion of interdisciplinary, historically grounded, linguistically and hermeneutically-informed approaches to political science, Hayward Alker was a tireless champion of interpretive methodologies.

The IMM Group gives the Hayward R. Alker Award annually to recognize the best conference paper by a PhD student in political science that employs or develops interpretive methods and methodologies. Reflecting Hayward Alker’s eclectic approach to political studies, the award will be given to a paper studying any aspect of political life that either (1) engages interpretive methodological issues or (2) reports the results of empirical research conducted using interpretive research methods.

Papers must come from PhD students in political science, and must have been presented at a political science association conference (e.g. American Political Science Association, Western Political Science Association, Midwest Political Science Association, other regional or state meetings, as well as other associations in the academic year preceding the award. Authors must be enrolled as PhD students at the time of the paper’s conference presentation. Authors may self-nominate. We also encourage chairs of panels as well as discussants to nominate outstanding papers from their conference sessions. Nominated papers should be identical to the version presented at the conference; subsequent revisions are not eligible.