Professor Christina Boswell wins Political Studies Association’s book of the year award

Professor Christina Boswell, Dean of Research at the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences and Professor of Politics at the School, has picked up the Political Studies Association’s (PSA) award for best political science book of the year.

Professor Boswell’s book, Manufacturing Political Trust, won the PSA’s W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize for her book, Manufacturing Political Trust.

The awards were announced on the PSA’s Twitter account here. They were due to be presented at the PSA’s Annual International Conference here at the University of Edinburgh, originally planned for the beginning of April, but cancelled due to Covid-19.

Manufacturing Political Trust was published in 2018. Here are excerpts from the statement from the PSA judging panel:

‘This is an excellent book on a profoundly important aspect of politics and policymaking.’

‘In terms of interdisciplinarity the author calls upon political science, public administration, sociology, and sociology of organisation, and Boswell combines them skilfully to investigate topics – such as migration – so important to understanding the relationship between politics, policy, society, and inequality. The book is well written and accessible to a non-specialist readership, with great appeal for a wide academic and practitioner audience. Although focused on the UK, it carries wider purchase in terms of its relevance for most other European countries, and provides a model to compare cases.’