C.B. Macpherson Prize - 2010

The Canadian Political Science Association announces the ninth biennial competition for the C.B. Macpherson Prize. The prize was established to honour the life and work of Crawford Brough Macpherson (1911-1987), an internationally renowned teacher and scholar of political theory who served as University Professor at the University of Toronto. The Canadian Political Science Association seeks to encourage the ideals of scholarship represented by this great Canadian political scientist.

Rules

• The C.B. Macpherson Prize will be awarded to the best book published, in English or in French, in a field relating to the study of political theory.
  
  
• To be eligible, a book may be single-authored or multi-authored. Textbooks, edited books, collections of essays, translations and memoirs will not be considered.
  
  
• In the case of a single-authored book, the author must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada or a member of the CPSA in the year the book was published. In the case of a multi-authored book, at least one of the authors must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada or a member of the CPSA in the year the book was published.
  
  
• A distinguished prize jury has been appointed by the Canadian Political Science Association, which administers the prize.
  
  
• For the 2010 award, a book must have a copyright date of 2008 or 2009.
  
  
• The deadline for submission of books will be 15 January 2010.
  
  
• The Prize winner(s) will be announced at the 2010 Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, to be held in Montreal.
  
  
• The Prize winner(s) will receive a commemorative plaque. They will also receive/share the set of books submitted to the CPSA office for the 2010 prize.
  
  
• To nominate a book, a copy must be sent directly to each member of the Prize Jury and the office of the CPSA at the addresses provided below.  Packages must be clearly marked C.B. MACPHERSON PRIZE ENTRY.
  

C.B. Macpherson Prize Jury
Canadian Political Science Association
Suite 204, 260 Dalhousie Street
Ottawa ON Canada K1N 7E4

Arash Abizadeh
Department of Political Science
McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal QC Canada H3A 2T7

Geneviève Nootens
Département des sciences humaines
Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
555 boulevard de l'Université
Chicoutimi QC Canada G7H 2B1

Melissa S. Williams (Chair)
Director, Centre for Ethics
University of Toronto
6 Hoskin Avenue
Toronto ON Canada M5S 1H8

2010
James Tully (University of Victoria)
Public Philosophy in a New Key (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Excerpt from the jury report:
James Tully’s two-volume work argues for the democratically engaged role of public philosophy. A new, fresh and clear synthesis of his previous work on the history of Western political thought, colonialism and post-colonialism, modern constitutionalism, and indigenous peoples, Tully’s book advances an inspiring project that stresses the need for public philosophy to enter into dialogue with citizens engaged in struggles against various forms of injustice and oppression. Public philosophy can throw a critical light on the field of practices in which civic struggles take place and the practices of civic freedom available to change them. The focus upon relationships of normativity and power, and the need to bring them into the light of public scrutiny thanks to the particular academic skills available to the researchers, make public philosophy ‘in a new key’ distinctively democratic. The breadth and depth of the work, combined with Tully’s focus on civic freedom and the possibility of the reciprocal elucidation of academic work and citizens’ democratic struggles, make it a major and truly inspiring contribution to contemporary political theory.

2008
Monique Deveaux (Williams College)
Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States (Oxford University Press, 2006)

Excerpt from the jury report:
Monique Deveaux’s Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal State deepens our understanding of the challenges faced by liberal states when they hold competing commitments to cultural rights and sexual equality. Deveaux’s construction of these tensions combines a rigorous examination not only of the current literature, but also of cases in South Africa, Canada, and Britain. Her approach is unabashedly political. She argues that although we can and should understand these tensions ethically, psychologically, sociologically, and legally, our responses should focus on frameworks for democratic negotiation and deliberation, as well as the conditions under which individuals affected by these conflicts gain the capacity to participate in negotiating them. Deveaux grounds her approach to democratic legitimacy in norms of political inclusion and democratic dialogue. She understands the spaces of democracy broadly, encompassing not only the formal institutions of democracy, but also the range of informal democratic activities that occur in the private and social spheres. The committee was deeply impressed with the thoroughness and rigour of the argument, and believes that Deveaux’s book solidly and creatively advances what has become a distinctively Canadian school of thought about the nature and practices of liberal multicultural societies.

2006
L.W. Sumner (University of Toronto)
The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression (University of Toronto Press, 2004)

Excerpt from the jury report:
In The Hateful and the Obscene, L.W. Sumner develops an original theory of free expression and applies it to the leading cases of obscenity and hate literature in Canada. The theory, drawing on elements from J.S. Mill (his consequentialism and the harm principle), is developed with great care and clarity, and is then used as a framework in analyzing the leading Canadian judicial decisions on pornography and hate propaganda. In this way, Sumner is able to situate – and assess – the legal decisions and reasonings by reference to fundamental philosophical principles concerning free expression. These analyses are comprehensive and powerful – illuminating the judicial decisions and sometimes criticizing them. This book is brilliantly original and will come to be recognized as a major work in the philosophical literature on free expression.

2004
Duncan Ivison (University of Toronto)
Postcolonial Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Excerpt from the jury report:
In Postcolonial Liberalism Duncan Ivison explores the challenges to liberal understandings of justice, citizenship, and democracy posed by the situation and the demands of indigenous peoples in contemporary democracies. Weaving together discussions of theorists as disparate as Rawls and Habermas on the one hand and Foucault and Said on the other, Ivison argues for a version of liberal theory that is pluralistic, open, and sensitive to the claims of local contexts but that still aspires to principled generality. Displaying a mastery of a remarkably wide range of works, Ivison produces an analysis that is subtle and sophisticated. He illustrates in his own discussions the kind of open-minded listening to others that he advocates. This is a distinguished contribution to the literature of contemporary political theory.

2002
Joseph Carens (University of Toronto)
Culture, Citizenship, and Community. A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Excerpt from the jury report:
The committee said of Joseph Carens that his book is comparable with the best international scholarship on the subject of citizenship and community, and contributes significantly to that scholarship through its attention to, and development of, ideas of context and evenhandedness. It demonstrates a subtlety and refinement of argumentation, engaging with and distilling a number of distinct theoretical positions. It combines theoretical depth with contextual sensitivity. Part of its subtlety lies in its grasp of concrete particular instances, showing how these particulars can enrich theoretical discussion by revealing hidden conceptual ambiguities. The committee agrees that this is a remarkable book, original and wide-ranging, whose importance will be recognised well beyond the discipline.

2000
Alan Patten (McGill University)
Hegel's Idea of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1999)

1998
Richard Vernon (University of Western Ontario)
The Career of Toleration (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997)

1996
Will Kymlicka (University of Ottawa)
Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 1995)

1994
Ronald Beiner (University of Toronto)
What's the Matter with Liberalism? (University of California Press, 1992)