David D. Laitin awarded 2021 Johan Skytte Prize
The Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, known by many as the “Nobel Prize in Political Science,” is being awarded for the 27th consecutive year. This year’s recipient is David D. Laitin, for his “original and objective explanation of how politics shapes cultural strategies in heterogeneous societies.”
Laitin has made “culture,” often the junk drawer of political science studies, studiable and concrete by identifying various cultural components of a nation’s inner life; language is one aspect of culture, religion another, art and literature a third, how private family life is organized a fourth. Central to his thinking is that these cultural components do not have to easily reinforce each other or pull in the same direction. These “spheres” can co-exist without coinciding.
