Faculty Book “Democracy and the Left” Earns Best Book Awards

huber-stephensUniversity of North Carolina political scientists Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens garnered two prestigious awards this summer for their recently published book Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America (University of Chicago Press, 2012).

Huber is Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor of Political Science and chair of the UNC Department of Political Science and Stephens is Gerhard E. Lenski Jr. Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology and director of the Center for European Studies. Their book Democracy and the Left won the Best Book Award from the Political Economy of the World System (PEWS) Section of the American Sociological Association and the Best Book Award from the Sociology of Development Section of the American Sociological Association.

In their award announcement, the PEWS team noted, “This book is an exemplary piece of scholarship illustrating the power of multi-method designs, cross-national and historical comparison, and robust theory.”

In Democracy and the Left, Huber and Stephens explore politics, social policy, inequality and economics in Latin America. They find that over the longer run democracy and left parties in government have a large impact on social policy, shaping policy such as to reduce poverty and inequality.

The book adds to their joint oeuvre, which includes the previously published books Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets (University of Chicago Press, 2001) and Capitalist Development and Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 1992), coauthored with Dietrich Rueschemeyer.

For more information about Huber and Stephens, visit their joint website.

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