Political scientist wins three awards

A study looking at the collapse of the former Soviet Union has earned a UW–Madison political scientist three prestigious book awards.

Mark Beissinger, chair and professor in the Department of Political Science, spent 13 years traveling to the former Soviet Union and Munich, Germany, where he pored over press accounts and the details surrounding thousands of protests and violent events that occurred in the Soviet Union between 1987 and 1992.

The resulting book, “Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State” (Cambridge University Press 2002), argues that uprisings by different ethnic nationalities led to a “tide of nationalism,” which gained momentum with each occurrence, and ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet state.

Beissinger’s awards include the American Political Science Association Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, which honors the best book published in the United States during 2002 on government, politics or international affairs; the 2003 Mattei Dogan Award, which is presented by the Society for Comparative Research, an interdisciplinary scholarly organization in the social sciences, for the best book published in the field of comparative research; and the award for the best book on European politics published in 2002, an award given by the Organized Section on European Politics and Society of the American Political Science Association.

Beissinger’s ambitious study looked at how the Soviet collapse went from seemingly impossible to seemingly inevitable during the course of four years of what he calls “thickened history,” a time in which events acquired a sense of momentum and began changing Soviet political institutions.

“The cross-case influences and unraveling of order that accompanied the tide of nationalism created opportunities for the expression of nationalist demands which, in normal times, were simply unthinkable,” Beissinger says.

The momentum from multiple waves of nationalist revolt, he argues, made it impossible for the political structure of the Soviet Union to defend itself and “ultimately brought about the disintegration of the Soviet state.”

Virginia Sapiro, associate vice chancellor for teaching and learning and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies, has chaired the committee that selects the Woodrow Wilson award, and calls Beissinger’s selection a special “coup,” as he is the only UW–Madison faculty member to ever win.

“This is our most prestigious award,” Sapiro says. “I can tell you it is incredibly competitive, as all books on politics, whether they are scholarly or not, come under the scrutiny of the committee. The competition is very intense.”

In awarding the Dogan award, the Society for Comparative Research says Beissinger’s work “provides a masterful case study building and extending modern political sociology.”