Dr Danny Rye wins the PSA Sir Ernest Barker Prize
Prize awarded for the best PhD thesis in political theory in 2013.
Recent Dept of Politics PhD graduate Danny Rye has won the Sir Ernest Barker Prize for the best PhD thesis in political theory this year, awarded by the Political Studies Association. The thesis title is - Political Parties and Power: A Multidimensional Analysis
The prize citation stated:
Rye’s thesis reflects the vocation of Barker himself, as his biographer Julia Stapleton puts it, to straddle ‘the institutional–theoretical divide’ in the study of politics. One of Barker’s persistent themes was the idea of politics by discussion - where the role of party was essential – and Rye provides us with a richly critical and original perspective on the way power within political parties structures and influences such discussion. He imaginatively weaves together theoretical reflection with interview and archive material to deliver not only a fresh interpretation of the modern Labour Party but also a more satisfactory, general, framework for understanding how power functions in democratic politics.