Richard Johnston Wins Best-Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Section on Race, Ethnicity and Politics
July, 2007
Political science professor Richard Johnston’s recent book, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South, has won the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) 2007 award for the best book published on race, ethnicity and politics. The APSA is the leading professional organization for the study of political science, and Johnston’s honor will be presented at the association’s upcoming annual convention in Chicago.
The book, which Johnston co-authored with Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, refutes the long-standing view that the critical shift in Southern political allegiance from Democratic to Republican was a result of backlash to the civil rights movement. The authors argue that economic development, more than issues of race, drove middle-class whites to the Republican Party and transformed the region’s political landscape.
Johnston’s research interests include elections, public opinion and representation, and campaign dynamics and survey methods. He previously acted as Principal Investigator on Canadian Election Studies and as an advisor to election studies in New Zealand, Great Britain, Germany and the United States. At Penn, Johnston also serves as Research Director of the National Annenberg Election Study.