O'Leary Receives First Linz Prize from International Political Science Association

Lauder Professor of Political Science Brendan O’Leary has been awarded the first Juan Linz Prize by the International Political Science Association (IPSA). The prize was created to honor a prominent scholar engaged in the comparative research on decentralization, multinational and multiethnic integration, and federalism that Linz demonstrated.

O’Leary has authored and edited over 25 books and hundreds of chapters and articles on power-sharing (especially in consociations and pluralist federations); national and ethnic conflict-regulation; national self-determination; and national, ethnic, and communal violence. His most recent books were Power Sharing in Deeply Divided Places and Getting out of Iraq With Integrity.

O’Leary has regularly engaged in constitutional and policy advisory work, notably in Northern Ireland, Somalia, Nepal, Sudan, and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and has been employed by the European Union and the United Nations for his expertise on power-sharing, federalism, and minority rights. He has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Uppsala, Western Ontario, Queen’s Belfast, and the National University of Ireland Galway. 

Born in Ireland, O'Leary grew up in Nigeria, Sudan, and Northern Ireland. He holds degrees from Oxford University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he also taught. He has been at Penn since 2002, and is the director of the University of Pennsylvania Program in Ethnic Conflict.

The Juan Linz prize recipient presents the Juan Linz lecture or leads a special session at the IPSA World Congress of Political Science. O'Leary was unable to attend the congress this year and will be recognized at the 2016 World Congress in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Juan Linz fund was created and sponsored by the EUSKOBAROMETRO observatory of the University of the Basque Country, and is open to new other institutional participants and managed by the Spanish Political and Administrative Science Association.

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