Cynthia van Vonno shortlisted for ECPR PhD prize
Political scientist Cynthia van Vonno’s (Leiden University) 2016 dissertation has been shortlisted for the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Jean Blondel PhD Prize. Her study of party group unity in parliamentary voting was chosen from an exceptionally high number of nominations.
How parliamentarians vote
In her thesis Achieving Party Unity: A Sequential Approach to Why MPs Act in Concert, Van Vonno investigates how members of parliament come to their decision to vote according to their party’s line. She succesfully defended her thesis in March 2016 and is currently lecturing in the Institute of Political Science’s curriculum.
Best thesis in politics
Since October 2003, the ECPR Press has awarded an annual PhD prize named after Political Science Professor Jean Blondel for the best thesis in politics (including not only Comparative Politics but also other fields such as International Relations, Political Theory and Public Administration).
Each full ECPR member institution can nominate only one dissertation (usually after an internal contest/selection procedure) which, with revision, could be potentially published as a monograph. The initial selection is based on a 15-20 page abstract; no more than 5 nominees are included in the short list and then submit a full copy of their thesis for evaluation by the committee. The winner will be announced in September 2017.