Best Phd paper prize
The Research Commission of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the UPF has decided, on the 4th of June, to award Jorge Cimentada and Pablo Christmann's papers for the best PhD paper Prize.
Author: Jorge Cimentada
Abstract:
Jorge Cimentada paper discusses a very interesting issue about education and the promotion of inequality. The paper relies on cross-national data (PISA), which significantly widens the impact and relevance of its findings, making use of methodologically sophisticated analyses that also include statistical simulations that are informative, and provides detailed methodological and theoretical advances for a better understanding and measurement of the SES achievement gap. The paper is very well written and demonstrates a high analytical ability and very significant skills to deal with complex dataset in a very creative and productive way.
Author: Pablo Christmann
Abstract:
Pablo Christmann paper, co-authored with his supervisor Mariano Torcal, and already published in West European Politics (40:6 1241-66), is a very sophisticated paper on electoral behaviour in Spain. The paper “tests the links between political and economic performance and satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Spain. Contrary to the dominant theoretical paradigm that explains the aggregate evolution of and the individual-level differences in SWD mainly by means of economic factors, the article presents evidence that evaluations of the political process are equally relevant to account for both changes in individuals’ SWD over time and the evolution of SWD at the national level”. The study makes use of different datasets, to confirm the importance of political processes for the satisfaction with democracy in Spain.