Grawemeyer Award

Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order is given to those who have taken on issues of world importance and presented viewpoints that could lead to a more just and peaceful world. Each idea supports one noble cause: to inspire us all to work together for the common good.The Award is presented annually to the winner of a competition designed to stimulate the recognition, dissemination and critical analysis of outstanding proposals for improving world order.Prize Amount The Grawemeyer Award in World Order is accompanied by a prize of $100,000, which is presented in full during the awards ceremony.Eligibility Submissions will be judged according to originality, feasibility and potential impact, not by the cumulative record of the nominee. They may address a wide range of global concerns including foreign policy and its formation; the conduct of international relations or world politics; global economic issues, such as world trade and investment; resolution of regional, ethnic or racial conflicts; the proliferation of destructive technologies; global cooperation on environmental protection or other important issues; international law and organization; any combination or particular aspects of these, or any other suitable idea which could at least incrementally lead to a more just and peaceful world order.
| Sl | Name | Country | Flag | Year | Awarded For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | John M. Owen IV | United States | 2025 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 44 | Neta Crawford | United States | 2024 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 43 | Steven Feldstein | United States | 2023 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 42 | Mona Lena Krook | United States | 2022 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 41 | Ken Conca | United States | 2021 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 40 | Susan Randolph | United States | 2019 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 39 | Terra Lawson-Remer | United States | 2019 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 38 | Sakiko Fukuda-Parr | Japan | 2019 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 37 | Scott Straus | United States | 2018 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 36 | Dana Burde | United States | 2017 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 35 | Victor Boutros | United States | 2016 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 34 | Gary Haugen | United States | 2016 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 33 | Mark S. Weiner | United States | 2015 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 32 | Jacques Hymans | United States | 2014 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 31 | Maria J. Stephan | United States | 2013 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 30 | Erica Chenoweth | United States | 2013 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 29 | Séverine Autesserre | France | 2012 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 28 | Kevin Bales | United States | 2011 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 27 | Trita Parsi | Iran | 2010 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 26 | Michael Johnston | United States | 2009 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 25 | Philip E. Tetlock | United States | 2008 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 24 | Roland Paris | United States | 2007 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 23 | Fiona Terry | United States | 2006 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 22 | Roberta Cohen | United States | 2005 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 21 | Francis Deng | South Sudan | 2005 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 20 | Peter Drahos | Australia | 2004 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 19 | John Braithwaite | Australia | 2004 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 18 | Stuart Kaufman | United States | 2003 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 17 | Janine Wedel | United States | 2001 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 16 | Kathryn Sikkink | United States | 2000 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 15 | Margaret E. Keck | United States | 2000 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 14 | Herbert Kelman | Australia | 1997 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 13 | Aaron Wildavsky | United States | 1996 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 12 | Max Singer | United States | 1996 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 11 | Gareth Evans | Australia | 1995 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 10 | Mikhail Gorbachev | Russia | 1994 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 9 | Donald Harman Akenson | United States | 1993 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 8 | John Cobb | United States | 1992 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 7 | Herman Daly | United States | 1992 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 6 | Samuel Huntington | United States | 1992 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 5 | The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development | United Nations | 1991 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 4 | Robert Jervis | United States | 1990 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 3 | Robert Keohane | United States | 1989 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 2 | Ernest R. May | United States | 1988 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. | |
| 1 | Richard Neustadt | United States | 1988 | for Ideas Improving World Order that leads to a more just and peaceful world. |

Grawemeyer Award Laureates (2030 ~ 2021)

John M. Owen IV
Grawemeyer Award 2025
For researching and writing The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order, an innovative book about way the international ecosystem constrains and influences democracies, University of Virginia Politics Professor John M. Owen IV will receive the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for World Order, the University of Louisville announced today.Reminiscent of an earlier era of political science, the wide-ranging work grapples with intellectual ideas that will have direct impact on the worlds of politics, policy, and government — such as the likely future of international order, with an emphasis on the competition between democracies and autocracies. Historically rich and sophisticated, its breadth spans international relations, political theory, and comparative politics.“Political scientists have tended to analyze democratic longevity and crises in domestic terms,” said University of Louisville Professor of Political Science and University Scholar Charles E. Ziegler, the director of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. “They generally look at internal economic structure, income levels, and a society’s cultural traits. Owen’s exposition of the role of the international ecosystem marks a major contribution to our understanding of world order.”The Grawemeyer Award for World Order has been given annually since 1988. Professor Owen appreciates the influence of a number of past Grawemeyer Award winners, particularly 1989 winner Robert Keohane, whose After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy inspired Professor Owen, then a Keohane advisee, to investigate the way international institutions work. In addition, 1992 winner Samuel Huntington, one of Owen’s graduate-school mentors, prompted Owen to attend to the waxing and waning global fortunes of democracy, as well as to international contagion. The work of Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, winners in 2000 for Activists beyond Borders, showed Owen how transnational groups carry ideas and practices across national boundaries.

Neta Crawford
Grawemeyer Award 2024
Neta Crawford, an international relations professor at the University of Oxford in England, received the prize for the ideas in her book “The Pentagon, Climate Change and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of Military Emissions” published by MIT Press in 2022.The U.S. military is the world’s largest single institutional producer of greenhouse gases, Crawford found. Between 1975 and 2022, its emissions averaged 81 million metric tons of greenhouse hydrocarbons a year—more than most countries. After it reduced operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, its emissions dropped to an annual average of 51 million metric tons, a level that still poses more risk to human existence than most military conflicts, she found.“The Pentagon looks at the world in terms of threats but doesn’t see its own emissions as part of the problem,” she said. “If it’s going to successfully switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, it must stop defending oil-rich countries and develop a different approach to national security.”Crawford is the first scholar to thoroughly assess the U.S. military’s global emissions profile and weigh its implications, said Charles Ziegler, who directs the world order award.“She convincingly explains how the military’s dependence on fossil fuels and consequent need to defend the sources of those fuels leads to a cycle of demand, consumption, militarization and conflict,” Ziegler said. “She also explains how the Pentagon can do more to make life on our planet sustainable.”Crawford, Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford since 2021, also codirects the Costs of War Project, a non-partisan effort at Brown University assessing the human and financial costs of U.S. wars. She was inducted into the British Academy and American Academy of Arts and Sciences earlier this year and won an International Studies Association distinguished scholar award in 2018. Recipients of the 2024 Grawemeyer Awards are being named this week pending formal trustee approval. The annual, $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, psychology, education and religion. Winners will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

Steven Feldstein
Grawemeyer Award 2023
Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, earned the prize
for ideas set forth in his book “The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power,
Politics and Resistance” published by Oxford University Press in 2021.
Feldstein examined how governments in China, Thailand, Ethiopia, and the Philippines have used a wide
range of digital tools such as internet shutdowns, disinformation campaigns, artificial intelligence and
even DNA collection to repress their citizens. For example, authorities in Hong Kong used facial
recognition to identify protest leaders and censorship tools to keep protest information from circulating.
“My goal was to learn how digital technology will affect the way governments rule in the future,” he
said. “I found that as people come to rely more on online communication, their leaders are realizing
they can use the same tools—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok—to spread propaganda, sow
division and intimidate their critics.”
His findings have disturbing implications for democracies and civil society organizations worldwide, said
Rodger Payne, who directs the world order award.
“Through skillful, thorough research and analysis, Feldstein shows how democracies are backsliding and
authoritarian governments are becoming revitalized by the use of digital technology,” Payne said. “He
also shares creative ideas for democracies, civil society organizations and businesses to mitigate that
trend.”
View More

Mona Lena Krook
Grawemeyer Award 2022
Krook, a political science professor who chairs Rutgers’ doctoral program on women and politics,
received the prize for ideas set forth in “Violence in Women in Politics: A Global Phenomenon,” her
2020 book published by Oxford University Press.
For the book, she collected details on the growing attacks against women in politics worldwide and
reviewed dozens of previous studies on the issue. Based on her findings, she sorted the violence into
five types: physical, psychological, sexual, economic and intimidation through words and images. In
all cases, the intent of the behavior was to exclude women from public life, she said.
As she chronicles the stories of women who have been bullied, shamed, threatened, arrested and
even murdered while serving in political roles, Krook explains how the phenomenon has caused
women to withdraw from politics and has made others reluctant to enter the field. She ends the
book with ideas to address the problem.
“Besides harming individual victims, violence against women in politics tramples on human rights,
disrupts institutions and undermines gender equity,” she said. “The hostile acts continue with little
being done to stop them.”
Krook has received honors from the American Political Science Association and International Political
Science Association for her studies of women and politics. She collaborated with the National
Democratic Institute to develop #NotTheCost, a global campaign to end violence aimed at keeping
women out of political life, and has advised the United Nations and U.S. Congress on gender and
politics issues.
“Her work shines a spotlight on the worldwide pervasiveness of violence against women in politics
and challenges us with a call to action,” said Charles Ziegler, Grawemeyer world order award
director. “What’s more, she details specific ways to correct the problem at all levels, from local
electoral districts to international organizations.”
The annual $100,000 Grawemeyer Awards, which also honor seminal ideas in music, psychology,
education and religion, are named each December pending final trustee approval. Winners will visit
Louisville in April to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

Ken Conca
Grawemeyer Award 2021
The United Nations can tackle global environmental challenges far more effectively by
incorporating two overlooked parts of its mandate—human rights and peace—into its efforts.
So says Ken Conca, an American University international relations professor who has won the
2021 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for the
ideas set forth his book “An Unfinished Foundation: The United Nations and Global
Environmental Governance.”
The U.N. has addressed environmental issues using legal and sustainable development
approaches but also needs to pursue strategies linked to its role as a protector of human rights
and peace, Conca says.
The organization should declare a safe and healthy environment to be a basic human right, give
its Security Council a well-defined role in safeguarding the environment, make sure its
environmental initiatives are conflict-sensitive and seek environmental peacebuilding
opportunities, he argues.
“His book is a crucial first step in a conversation about how the U.N. can better address global
environmental threats,” said Charles Ziegler, world order director. “He identifies a critical failure
of a vital institution grappling with one of the most important issues facing humanity and
suggests ways to overcome it.”
Conca is a member of the U.N. Environment Programme’s Expert Advisory Group on Conflict
and Peacebuilding and founded the Environmental Peacebuilding Working Group in
Washington. He was a reviewer for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change and served on a scientific steering committee for the International Human
Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change.
He has twice won the International Studies Association’s award for best international
environmental affairs book.
The U.N., formed in 1945 after the devastation of World War II, works to maintain international
peace and security, prevent conflict, promote peace and create conditions in which peace can
flourish.















