Richard Johnston Wins V.O. Key Award from the Southern Political Science Association
April 2008
Political science professor Richard Johnston’s book, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South, has won the V.O. Key Award from the Southern Political Science Association for the best book on Southern politics.
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, with a special interest in 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. Johnston also serves as Research Director of the National Annenberg Election Study at Penn.
The Southern Political Science Association is a professional organization of political scientists that recognizes excellence in scholarship and public service through publishing the Journal of Politics, hosting an annual conference and presenting awards for outstanding academic contributions.