Best Papers Prize Winners, The Eighth Annual Conference, 12-14 December 2012 The first prize in the best paper award of the Eighth Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Morin Hayo-Hemo University of Haifa, For her paper: "Are all Politicians Corrupt? The Personal Need for Structure and stereotypes of Political Corruption Perceptions in Israel" Morin Hayo-Hemo is about to complete her thesis on the cognitive formation of political corruption perceptions in Israel at the school of political science, University of Haifa. Her paper was supervised by Dr. Doron Navot. The committee's evaluation of the winning paper The second prize in the best paper award of the Eighth Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Dana Markowitz Elfassi University of Haifa, For her paper: "How does Beauty Shape Political News in Television? The Effect of Physical Attractiveness of the Israeli Politicians on the Tone of their News Coverage" Dana Markowitz-Elfassi is a PhD candidate at the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa. Her paper was supervised by Prof. Yariv Tsfati. The committee's evaluation of the second prize paper The Members of the 8th Annual Conference Prize Committee: Sam Lehman-Wilzig (Bar Ilan University), Chair; Itai Beeri (University of Haifa; Becky Kook (Ben Gurion University); Carmela Lutmar (University of Haifa) Best Papers Prize Winners, The Seventh Annual Conference, 14-16 December 2011 The best paper award of the Seventh Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Phillip Martin Carleton University, For his paper: "Sharing Power after Deadly Conflict: Do Inclusive Institutions Work After the Fighting Stops" Best Papers Prize Winners, The Sixth Annual Conference, 15-17 December 2010 The best paper award of the Sixth Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Michal Livnat Hebrew University of Jerusalem, For her paper: Foresighted Hindsight Bias and its Impact upon Decision Making Carried out by a Third Party The Committee's verdict: While Ms. Livnat's paper deals with a common phenomenon known as "hindsight bias", she advances an original point of view, which is highly innovative and of great value and importance. Ms Livnat has chosen to examine the effects of this phenomenon on the decision making of actors who are judged by those evaluating the decisions retrospectively. In other words, she has chosen to examine decision makers who are often criticized with "hindsight bias". In the center of her analysis stands the level of risk-taking or risk-avoidance of the decision makers. The author conducted an experiment with 81 student participants in order to test the indirect effect of the "hindsight bias" phenomenon, and her findings are extremely exciting. The experiment shows that people who were judged with "hindsight bias" tended to refrain from risk taking in comparison with those who were judged by a person without this bias. These conclusions are very meaningful, because the effect Livnat has measured is certainly not less, and perhaps even more important than the original effect. It is obvious that her experiment simulates a common situation in which decision makers in the political arena know that they will be scrutinized with "hindsight bias". Livnat's paper draws in an impressive way on the literature on decision making, and combines an experiment with a multi-variable statistical analysis. The paper reflects both an innovative conceptual thinking and extremely high research capabilities and thus richly merits this award. Michal Livnat is about to complete her MA degree at the School of Public Policy at the Hebrew University. Her paper was supervised by Dr. Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan     The jury also noted the following four papers forHonorary Mention: Aysen Ustubici and Darja Irdam, Koç University, Impact of Remittances on Human Development: a Quantitative Analysis and Policy Implications Hannah Schwander, University of Zurich, What do Outsiders Want? Explaining Welfare Preferences in Dualized Countries, Yaniv Feller, Hebrew University, For the Sake of This World: Martin Buber and Gnosis Eyal Benozio, Hebrew University, Turkey, the United States and the Kurds in between: the Security Dilemma in Asymmetric Alliances Under Unipolarity The Members of the 6th Annual Conference Prize Committee were: Prof. Benny Miller (Chair, University of Haifa) Dr. Tal Dingott Alkopher (Hebrew University) Dr. Uriel Abulof (Tel Aviv University) Dr. Becky Kook (Ben Gurion University) Dr. Shaul Shenav (Hebrew University) Dr. Dana Vashdi (University of Haifa)

Best Papers Prize Winners, The Fifth Annual Conference, 9 December 2009 The best paper award of the Fifth Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Jenny Oser Hebrew University of Jerusalem, For her paper: A Vicious or Virtuous Circle? Aligning Ontology and Methodology in the Study of Participatory Inequality You may want to download a zip file which includes files needed to run a narrated powerpoint of Jenny Oser conference presentation. Just open up and save this file on your computer and click on the html file, and it will run the presentation for you. The Committee's verdict: In this paper Jennifer Oser brings a new theoretical and a truly comparative framework to the subject of political participation. She points out that the overtime increase of forms of participation is NOT accompanied by leveling of the participation playing field. Understanding the pattern of unequal participation, as well as its causes, is the focus of the paper. She identifies clusters of political acts of different kinds. She then shows that with respect to these patterns, citizens are either active, engaged, or disengaged. Finally, Jennifer shows that different kinds of states – more welfare oriented as opposed to free-market oriented – encourage different types of political participation and different patterns of inequality in individual-level participation. The paper, which is part of a larger project, is thoughtful, carefully conducted, and presents a real contribution to a voluminous literature on an important topic. Jenny Oser is a PhD student at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government. Her dissertation is supervised by Prof. Michael Shalev and Prof. Itzhak Galnoor     The jury also noted the following paper for Honorary Mention: Hanan Haber Hebrew University of Jerusalem Regulating for Welfare: Varieties of Regulatory Welfare Regimes in the Israeli, British and Swedish Electricity Sectors The Committee's verdict: This is a thought-provoking comparative paper on the impact of the state's welfare policy tradition on the design of new regulatory regimes and on the emergence of what the author calls 'regulatory welfare regimes'. The author links the politics of regulation with the politics of the welfare state, comparing the British, Israeli and Swedish traditions. Hanan Haber reaches interesting conclusions, namely, that "pending further research, it is possible to suggest that a well developed welfare regime (as in Sweden), is in fact a facilitating factor in promoting economically efficient regulation of competitive markets". This is a promising line of research and a well written paper that presents an important contribution to the comparative public policy and comparative political economy literature. Hanan Haber is a MA student at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government. His MA thesis is supervised by Prof. David Levi-Faur   Members of the 5th Annual Conference Prize Committee were: Dr. Amal Jamal (Chair, Tel Aviv University) Prof. Orit Kedar (Hebrew University) Dr. Amir Lupovici (Tel Aviv University) Dr. Alon Peled (Hebrew University)

Best Papers Prize, Fourth Annual Conference, December 2008 Members of the Annual Conference Prize Committee are: Prof. Alex Mintz (Chair, Interdisciplinary Center, Hertzelia) Dr. Anat Gofen (Hebrew University) Dr. Ben Mor (University of Haifa) Dr. Maoz Rosenthal (Interdisciplinary Center, Hertzelia) The best paper award of the Fourth Annual Graduate Conference was awarded to: Keren Weinshall-Margel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, For her paper: Attitudinal Model versus Neo-Institutional Approach to Supreme Court Decision-Making: Israel in Comparative Perspective The Jury verdict says: Keren Weinshall-Margel presents a powerful analysis of Israel's Supreme Court decision-making on freedom of religion, using theoretical models of decision making researched in other court systems, mainly the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada. She presents two theoretical models: neo-institutional and attitudinal. Keren examines how justices' attitudes and preferences and law and institutional rules affect Israeli judicial decision making. The paper makes a unique contribution in terms of a theory-driven comparative analysis of the relationship between politics and law in a decision-making framework. It is a coherent, well written, well-organized, theoretically and methodologically sound paper. The jury also noted the following three papers for honorary mention: Yonathan Reshef, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Solidarity, Communitarian Ontology, and Individual Rights Heike Kluever, University of Mannheim, Good theories deserve good data: Testing theories of interest group influence using quantitative text analysis Rony Silfen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Uti Possidetis Juris: Same Same but Different   Best Papers Prizes, Third Conference, January, 17th 2008 The best paper award of the Third Annual Graduate Conference is shared by three graduate students: Kabiri Ariel (University of Haifa) Anarchy Is What Technology makes of It: A Materialistic Selection of the Social Construction of Power Politics. Mr. Kabiri dissertation supervisor is Prof. Benny Miller. Koreh, Michal, (The Hebrew University) The transformation of the finance system: mere incremental changes or a silent revolution in the Israeli welfare state?, Ms. Koreh's dissertation supervisors are Dr Michael Shalev and Professor Johnny Gal Tzur, Doron, (Bar Ilan University) When K.I.S.S. is not an Option. Mr. Tzur's supervisor is Prof. Dani Bar-Tal The three winners share a prize of 1,500 shekels Members of the Prize Committee were: Prof. Mario Sznajder (Chair) Dr. Margit Cohn Dr. Efraim Podoksik Dr. Alberto Spektorowski. Double click for the summary of the committee's decisions   Best Papers Prizes, 2nd Conference, December 2006 The best paper award of the Second Annual Graduate Conference [2006] is shared by Olena Bagno (Poli-Sci, Tel Aviv University) and Avishai Benish (Law, Hebrew University). Olena and Avishai will share a prize of 1,500 shekels that was contributed by the Israeli Association for Political Science. Their papers are available for download: Olena V. Bagno, Tel-Aviv University, Destination Does Matter. Life-long openness model of political socialisation applied to the study of CIS Jewish immigrants in Germany. Olena's dissertation is supervised by Prof. Michal Shamir Avishai Benish, The Hebrew University, Privatized "Welfare-to-Work" Programs and the Problem of Inherent Oversight Failure. Avisahi's dissertation is supervised by Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer and Prof. Dan Shnit Members of the 2006 Prize Committee were Prof. Asher Arian (chair), Prof. Gideon Doron and Dr. Yagil Levy. Double click for the summary of the committee's decisions   Best Papers Prizes, 1st Conference, November 2005: Prizes The Winner of the First Prize of the First Annual Graduate Conference [2005] for the best paper was Doron Navot for his paper "Everybody talking Corruption, Nobody is talking Justice". The paper is a by-product of his dissertation at the Hebrew University (supervised by Prof. Yaron Ezrahi and Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer). The award was accompanied by a grant of 1000 shekels. A special distinction award for doctoral paper was granted to Maoz Rosental from Tel Aviv University for his paper "Stability and Instability from a rational choice perspective". The paper is drawn from a dissertation supervised by Prof. Gideon Doron. The best MA student paper was awarded to Mtanes Shihadeh from the University of Haifa. Mtanes' paper titled "Economic voting in Israel: Differences and similarities among Jewish voters at the center and the periphery" summarizes his thesis. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Asher Arian. It goes with a grant of 500 shekels. A special distinction award was granted to Sarah Lazar from the University of Haifa for her paper "Political Motherhood: Breakthrough or Restraint? “Four Mothers” case and the withdrawal from Lebanon". The paper is based on a dissertation supervised by Dr. Annabel Herzog. The best presentation awards were give to Ofir Abu (Tel Aviv), Efrat Zilber (Bar Ilan) and Yoram Evron (Haifa). Advocate Dalia Gavrieli (Bar-Ilan) joined us for the best presentation award decision. We decided to award the prize to three participants. Members of the 2005 Committee were Dr. Eran Vigoda-Gadot (chair), Dr. Asad Ghanem, Dr. David Levi-Faur and Advocate Dalia Gavrieli.