CNDS fellow awarded 2019 JEPP Best Paper Prize

Photo: Vladimir Rodas The Journal of European Public Policy awarded CNDS fellow Charles F. Parker, Thomas Persson and Sten Widmalm with its 2019 Best Paper Prize.

JEPP's two-member jury (Charlotte Burns and Thomas Plümper of the Editorial Board) selected the paper by Parker, Persson and Widmalm as 2019's best paper because it applies a genuine public policy perspective to the substantively important field of natural disasters. In addition, the jury felt that the paper sheds light on both the logic and effectiveness of public policies and the importance of public policy for the resilience in natural disasters. They also liked the integration of EU public policies with a comparative perspective at the national level. The authors convincingly demonstrate that effective public policies provide an organizational framework with an effective crisis management. Both factors together provide the necessary interplay of a prestructered response that the affected population can trust upon and the flexibility needed because ultimately each disaster is different. The jury's decision was also influenced by our belief that the same analytical framework can be utilized by political scientists to analyze the effectiveness of the national response to the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, making the paper even more relevant for contemporary European public policies.

Parker, Charles F., Persson, Thomas, & Widmalm, Sten (2019). The effectiveness of national and EU-level civil protection systems: Evidence from 17 member states. Journal of European Public Policy, 26 (9), 1312–1334.