Senior Fellow Thomas E. Mann Receives Frank J. Goodnow Award

The American Political Science Association (APSA) honored longtime Brookings scholar Thomas E. Mann with its 1999 Frank J. Goodnow Award for Distinguished Service at the APSA Annual Meeting in Atlanta on September 1.

Mann, the W. Averell Harriman Senior Fellow at Brookings, served as Executive Director of APSA from 1981 to 1987 and as Director of the Brookings Institution’s Governmental Studies Program from 1987 to 1999. He was recognized by APSA for his contributions to the public’s understanding of Congress, and for his leadership in revitalizing the Association.

The Goodnow Award citation reads, in part:

• Scholar, leader of the profession, observer of political life — you greatly enhanced the Association during your term as executive director and have contributed to the public understanding of congressional politics throughout your career… Your studies of the American political system are among the most pertinent the profession has to offer, and your commentary on current political events — whether on radio, on television or in print — is highly regarded… Your efforts to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the institution of Congress and to improve its functioning combine the best of scholarship and public service.

“Brookings takes immense pride in the leadership and scholarship for which Tom Mann is being so deservedly honored,” said Institution President Michael H. Armacost. “Tom has achieved excellence throughout a career devoted to political science, and his work has contributed to greater public understanding of many critical issues. He has earned this award not only for the high quality of his own work, but for the encouragement he has always supplied to the work of his colleagues.”

During his dozen years at Brookings, Mann has been a nationally recognized scholar and a respected commentator on the political system. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993 and of the National Academy of Public Administration in 1989.

He is author, editor, co-author, or co-editor of many books, including Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook; Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy; Congress, the Press, and the Public; Media Polls in American Politics; A Question of Balance: The President, the Congress, and Foreign Policy; Vital Statistics on Congress, and Unsafe At Any Margin: Interpreting Congressional Elections.

The Frank J. Goodnow Award for Distinguished Service, named after the first president of the APSA, was established in 1996 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to both the development of the political science profession and the building of the American Political Science Association. Mann received this years award along with Gabriel A. Almond, Doris A. Graber, and Malcolm E. Jewell.

Two other Brookings scholars and a new Brookings Press book also received recognition at the APSA Annual Meeting. Brookings Visiting Fellow Allen Schick of the University of Maryland was honored with the Charles E. Merriam Award for his 35 years as “a creative and prolific scholar” whose work “on budgeting and public management has shaped the practice of government around the globe.” The award is given biennially to “a person whose body of work has made a significant contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.”

Sarah Binder, a fellow in the Brookings Governmental Studies Program, won ASPA’s Organized Section CQ Press Award for the best paper on legislative studies presented at the 1998 APSA Annual Meeting: “Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock.”

The Aaron Wildavsky Award, presented at the APSA Annual Meeting in Atlanta by the Policy Studies Organization for the best book of the year on policy studies, went to Tufts University Professor Jeffrey M. Berry for his 1999 Brookings Press book The New Liberalism: The Rising Power of Citizen Groups.