Professor wins political science research prize

Assistant professor Susan Webb Yackee of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has won the Paul Volcker Endowment Junior Scholar Research Grant from the American Political Science Association‘s Public Administration Section.

The $3,000 award will support her research project, “Does Political Accountability Lead to Regulatory Delay? An Empirical Assessment of Federal Agency Rulemaking.”

The Volcker Grant is given for research that sheds new light on important public administration questions, their scholarly and methodological rigor, and their promise for advancing theory and practice.

Yackee received ASPA’s 2007 “Emerging Scholar Award” from its Political Parties and Organizations Section. The Midwest Political Science Association honored her for the “Best Paper by an Emerging Scholar” Award for her 2007 presentation. The paper, co-authored with La Follette School affiliate Jason Yackee, is entitled “Is Agency Rulemaking ‘Ossified?’ Testing Congressional, Presidential, and Judicial Procedural Constraints from 1983 to 2006.”

Her work has been published in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Policy Studies Journal. She grew up in Fargo, N.D., and received her bachelor’s degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., in 1997.

La Follette School associate professor Donald P. Moynihan won the Volcker award in 2004 for his work, “What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Performance? A Content Analysis of Legislative Discussion of Performance Information.” He published the book “The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform” earlier this year.