Kaplan Prize
The Morton A. Kaplan Prize is awarded annually for the best Master's paper by a recently graduated Honors student from the University of Chicago's Committee on International Relations. The prize is named in honor of the former chair of the Committee on International Relations (and now, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago), whose many important publications include his landmark book: System and Process in International Politics. The winner receives a certificate of recognition and a special commemorative gift.
The Morton A. Kaplan prize was first awarded in 1994 to Michael Corradino for his Master's Thesis, entitled The Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat for U.S. Exporters in the Uruguay Round.
- 1995 Winner: Stefano Ponte: "Structural Adjustment Programs and Agricultural Performance: Beyond the Policy Factor. Lessons from Kenya and Tanzania"
- 1996 Winner: Ahmed Hirsch: "UNRWA 1950-1994: A Challenge to Monopoly Sovereignty"
- 1997 Winner: Colin Woodard: "Balkan Ghosts and their Masters: The Politics of Ethno-Nationalism in Romania."
- 1998 Winner: Jennifer Fitzgerald: "Reframing Nationalism Reframed: Non-Violent Quadratic Relationships in Post-Communist Eastern Europe."
- 1999 Winner: Alexander Downes: "The Holy Land Divided? Theory and Practice for a Successful Partition in Palestine."
- 2000 Winner: Dong Chun Soh: "Liberal Order Building and Transnational Technocracy: The Case of South Korean Economic Development."
- 2001 Winner: Takafumi Noguchi: "A Game Theoretical Approach to UN Non-coercive Conflict Management in International Crises, 1945-1994."
- 2002 Winner: Dominik Meier: "The European Security and Defense Identity and Its future. An Outlook for the 21st Century."
- 2003 Winner: Azhar Jaimurzina: "Assessing Security Cooperation in Central Asia"
- 2003 Winner: Sarah Jane Dinan: "Father Russia or Brother Russia? How Russia Understands its Relationship with the Former Soviet Republics."
- 2004 Winner: Arek Kaczmarek-Ison: "Post-Materialism and Value Theory of International Relations."
- 2005 Winner: Sebastian Schmidt: "To Order the Minds of Scholars: The Discourse of the Peace of Westphalia in International Relations Literature."
- 2006 Winner: Alexandra Hope Croswell: "Systemic Change and Terror: Understanding the Causal Mechanisms of 9/11."
- 2007 Winner: Michael Smith: "Shouting Into the Wind: Examining the Structural Weakness of Developing Countries In the Global Trade Order."
