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Department of Political and Social Sciences

Professor Elias Dinas and SPS alumni win Joseph L Bernd JOP Best Paper Award

Elias Dinas, Swiss Chair in Federalism, Democracy, and International Governance and Professor at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences (SPS), together with EUI alumni Sergi Martínez and Vicente Valentim, have been awarded the Joseph L Bernd JOP Best Paper Award.

14 January 2025 | Alumni - Award

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SPS Professor Elias Dinas and alumni Sergi Martínez and Vicente Valentim have received the Joseph L Bernd JOP Best Paper Award conferred by the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) for their paper ‘Social Norm Change, Political Symbols, and Expression of Stigmatized Preferences.’ The award, bestowed by a committee of scholars representing various subfields within the political sciences, is granted to the Best Paper published in the Journal of Politics in 2024.

The award-winning paper by Dinas, Martínez, and Valentim examines the public displays of nationalism in Spain following the referendum on Catalan independence in October 2017, exploring in particular the display of the Spanish flag through a longitudinal sample of streets of Madrid.

In reacting to the award, Professor Dinas highlighted the genuine originality of the paper: “This project was truly born at the EUI, where, together with my PhD advisees and co-authors, Vicente and Sergi, we decided to pursue what initially seemed like an overly ambitious idea.”

Indeed, one of the strongest assets of their work was the innovative use of Google Maps Street View as part of their empirical strategy. “This was a heterodox project trying to observe norms ― an abstract phenomenon ― using a novel methodology to trace how these long-standing social conventions change,” explains Sergi Martínez, EUI alumnus and currently Professor at EAFIT University in Medellín, Colombia.

As part of their research, the data retrieval process “involved quite a bit of flag-spotting, both in the streets and online, and we’re thrilled to see it recognised,” mentioned Professor Dinas. “We are very pleased with this recognition, which highlights both the audacity of the ideas and the hard work behind their development,” added Martínez.

“I am thrilled to have been awarded this prize,” expressed Vicente Valentim, SPS alumnus and currently Professor at IE University in Madrid, Spain. “The paper that won the prize comes out off a project that is very close to my heart, making it even more rewarding,” shared Valentim.

The award was conferred on 10 January 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico during SPSA’s 2025 Conference.

The Southern Political Science Association is one of the oldest and largest political science organisations in the United States. It owns the Journal of Politics, a leading general interest journal in political science, and hosts an Annual Conference presenting research in all major fields and subfields of political science.

 

Photo credits: Flickr, "Italian Lasagna"

Last update: 14 January 2025

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