Call for Nominations: Onora O’Neill Political Theory Prize

From the Standing Group on Methods of Normative Political Theory

Nominations for the Onora O'Neill Political Theory Prize are now open. Submit your nomination by emailing ecproopt@gmail.com, with a.poama@fgga.leidenuniv.nl (the jury chair) in CC. The deadline for nominations is 23:59 CET on 31 January 2026. Details about the nomination process follow below.

The Onora O’Neill Political Theory Prize [1], sponsored by Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISPP), aims to recognise the best book published in political theory in the last three years. Political theory is widely construed to include political philosophy, the history of political thought, the methodology of political theory and philosophy, public ethics, and the ethics of public policy.

The prize cuts across all traditions, orientations and approaches in political theory, political thought, and political philosophy, and does not take into account whether the nominated works are first book publications or not. The prize is sponsored financially and editorially by CRISPP, and organisationally by four ECPR political theory and political thought Standing Groups (Political Theory, International Political Theory, Kantian Political Thought, Methods of Normative Political Theory).

Procedure

• The prize is awarded every year at the ECPR General Conference, at the beginning of the ECPR Theory Plenary.
• The winner of the prize commits in principle to be present at the ECPR Theory Plenary.
• The prize is accompanied by a £250 financial reward.
• The prize-winning book will be the topic of a panel at the ECPR General Conference. This panel will be considered for publication as a book symposium in CRISPP (following consideration and acceptance of a proposal by the CRISPP editorial team detailing the symposium editor, contributors and abstracts of their papers; and subject to peer review of the final submission). Publication is not guaranteed.

Nomination requirements

• Only books published in the last three years are admissible (i.e., not earlier than January 2022).
• In the nomination text, please submit a book abstract (no longer than 1,000 words) and a PDF copy of the book. Hard copies should be sent only if the book has been long-listed for the prize (see below).
• Books can be nominated by one academic affiliated with an ECPR institution (the nomination can come from PhD students, postdocs, tenure-track or tenured academics) or be self-nominated.
• The book will be considered for a symposium publication in CRISPP. As much as possible, nominations have to indicate 3-5 names of academics that could take part in the book symposium.
• Books may be nominated more than once.
• Nominations have to submitted by 31 January 2026. The decision is taken and announced during the summer of 2026. Our aim is to have a book prize symposium panel included in the 2026 ECPR General Conference (8 – 11 September 2026). If needed, the symposium panel will be organised in hybrid format, irrespective of the speakers’ mode of participation.

Jury composition

• The jury is composed of one secretary (with a term of four years, renewable once), and eight members (two members/Standing Group from Political Theory, International Political Theory, Kantian Thought, and Methods of Normative Political Theory). The jury members serve a one-year term, renewable twice.
• The jury members are nominated by the Steering Committees of their Standing Groups in coordination with the secretary of the jury. It is desirable that the members of the jury (other than the secretary) are not members of the Steering Committees (in particular, to ensure increased diversity and wider participation across those Standing Groups).
• When selecting jury members, Steering Committees are required to ensure gender diversity
• The secretary of the jury is selected every four years, following open vote, by the members of the four Steering Committees of the Standing Groups indicated above.
• The jury members are not allowed to nominate/have nominated a book for the prize, and they should disclose any potential conflict of interest with the authors of the short-listed books

Decision procedure

• The secretary draws a list of admissible nominations (books have to fall in the relevant discipline category). Based on their open access to the list of nominations received, jury members can veto any nomination exclusion. This brings a nominated book back into the list of admissible nominations.
• The selection procedure includes a long and a short list of nominations (max. nine books for the long list; max. five books for the short list).
• It is desirable that hard copies of the book be sent to the jury members at a deadline indicated following the selection to the long list.
• Only jury members directly vote and deliberate on the ranking of the nominations, on the long and short lists, on the prize winner and, should that be the case, on the runner-up.
• The secretary plays a coordinating and facilitating role in the deliberation process leading to the selection of the long and short lists, and of the prize winner.
• The winner is selected, as much as possible, via jury consensus. If that is not possible, the winner is selected following a qualified majority rule (6/8).
• Should the decision result in an ex aequo situation, the secretary votes as well.

CRISPP Guidelines for Book Symposium Editors

CRISPP will consider the proceedings of the prize laureate for publication, but publication is not guaranteed. The contributions should be short essays of 3,000 words maximum, inclusive of abstract and references. This would mean a maximum of of 4x3 for the commentators, and 1x4,000 for the author to reply. CRISPP would also like the editor to write a brief introduction (1x3000) setting the context for the symposium – why the book is important in the debates it addresses, and outlining the main arguments of the book so the symposium could be read by someone yet to read the book. This adds up to a maximum of 20,000 words for the entire Symposium (building in some wiggle room). It is very important to keep to that limit as CRISPP needs to be able to include three or four other articles in the issue. CRISPP also expects that there to be a good gender balance among the contributors and some ethnic, career stage and geographical diversity. We require that either two referees look at the whole symposium, or that each piece is refereed separately. We can agree who that would be beforehand – CRISPP would be grateful if you could suggest referees and then if they look adequate (a concern is avoiding using people CRISPP has recently approached) you as the symposium editor can make the arrangement with them directly.  It is best to get the commentators’ pieces refereed first before the author writes his/her reply, otherwise it can be difficult to ask for revisions. So, the response should only be written once the commentaries are approved. CRISPP would then like to see the reports and the authors responses to them. Note that we do all of this outside the editorial manager system – I spare those unused to its quirks the unedifying experience of grappling with it.

NB: important issues concerning submission: All contributions must be in CRISPP format. It’s very important these are done properly and follow the guidelines.
 

[1] Onora O’Neill’s work combines political philosophy, political theory and moral philosophy scholarship with public policy-oriented activities. She has extensively published on questions pertaining to trust and trustworthiness, justice, accountability, consent, the role of public universities, and the ethics of communication in the context of emerging digital technologies. She was the president of the British Academy, served as the chair the Nuffield Foundation and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and was member of the Medical Research Council and Banking Standards Board. She is the recipient of various awards, prizes and official recognitions (including the Berggruen Prize).