The American Political Science Association (APSA) awarded its Law and Courts Best Conference Paper Award for 2023 to Christina Bambrick, an assistant professor of political science at Notre Dame and a faculty fellow with the Center.
Dr. Bambrick was awarded for her paper “Meeting of the Minds: Reshaping Citizens’ Rights and Duties,” which she co-authored with Georgia Southern University professor Maureen Stobb. The award indicates that the paper was considered by the APSA to be the best paper on law and courts presented in a given year’s annual meetings of the American, International, or regional political science associations.
“Christina Bambrick is a star in the making,” said CCCG Director Vincent Phillip Muñoz. “Among my proudest accomplishments as director of the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government is recruiting Dr. Bambrick to Notre Dame.”
Dr. Bambrick spoke to the Center about what this honor means for her: “This award is so gratifying for the very reason that this project has been in the works for so long–lots of writing and revising, confronting journal rejections, etc. Even as we've gone back to revise and rewrite, though, we've remained confident in the fact that we're making an important contribution to the scholarly conversation on questions of constitutional rights and duties.”
The paper sought to apply both qualitative and quantitative methods to the question of how “horizontal rights,” or “those constitutional rights obligations [that] are applied to private actors,” are included in constitutions. Drs. Bambrick and Stobb concluded that “the constitution-making process matters a great deal to whether these kinds of horizontal rights provisions are ultimately included in the final document.”
Despite her and her coauthor’s constant belief in the project, Dr. Bambrick nonetheless was glad to see it appreciated, saying that “the fact that our intellectual community has now recognized this as a contribution, too, makes all our work that much more worth it.” She continued, “I've learned so much in the process of writing this paper and can honestly say it has been fun too. I'm fortunate to have worked with such a great coauthor and in such a dynamic subfield of political science.”
Dr. Bambrick was also excited to announce that the acclaimed paper had been “accepted to our subfield's flagship journal, The Journal of Law and Courts” and that “it should be published sometime next year.”
This honor for Dr. Bambrick comes as her new book Constitutionalizing the Private Sphere: A Comparative Inquiry is set to be published by Cambridge University Press at the end of September.
To learn more about Dr. Bambrick’s work, visit her faculty page.
Originally published by at constudies.nd.edu on September 24, 2024.