Sidney Verba receives Uppsala’s Skytte Prize

The Skytte Foundation at Sweden’s Uppsala University has announced that the 2002 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science will be awarded to Sidney Verba, the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the University Library. According to the Skytte Foundation, Verba was chosen “for his penetrating empirical analysis of political participation and its significance for the functioning of democracy.”

In announcing the award, the Skytte Foundation noted that “Sidney Verba is recognized as one of the world’s leading electoral researchers. His scholarly work focuses on political participation and on its uneven distribution among the different social classes. In his fundamental work dealing with political participation in the United States, Verba has developed a standard for the conduct of electoral research. Verba is also a pioneer in comparative research on civic culture in different countries.”

His latest book, “The Private Roots of Public Action” (Harvard University Press, 2001), which Verba co-authored with Nancy Burns and Kay Lehman Schlozman, analyzes political participation based on gender.

“Over his long and distinguished career, Sid Verba has greatly enlarged our understanding of the dynamics of participatory democracy and civic life,” said Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers. “The impact of his scholarship has been keenly felt in both academic and policy circles, and the Skytte Prize is a well-deserved recognition of his profound contributions to political science.”

The Johan Skytte Prize, with its stipend of nearly $40,000, is one of the world’s largest prizes in the social sciences. Verba will receive the Skytte Prize during a ceremony in Uppsala on Sept. 28.

For more information on the Skytte Prize, visit the Uppsala Web site at http://www.statsvet.uu.se/prize/.