2024 Lepgold Book Prize Lecture and Reception
We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Lepgold Prize winner is Dr. Rochelle Terman, assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s Department of Political Science, for her book The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires (Princeton University Press, 2023). This year, Georgetown professors Dr. Kathleen McNamara and Dr. Andrew Bennett chaired the Lepgold committee, calling Terman’s book “the best book on international relations published in 2023.” Dr. Terman will deliver a lecture and accept her award at the Mortara Center on Thursday, November 7th, 2024 at 4 pm. The event will be followed by a cocktail reception from 5 to 6 pm at the Mortara Center.
Rochelle Terman is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. She specializes in international norms and human rights. Terman has also produced work on gender, Islamophobia, and computational social science. She is currently a faculty affiliate with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, the Committee on International Relations, and the Program on Computational Social Science.
In her book, Terman draws on a wide range of evidence—from large-scale cross-national data to original survey experiments and detailed case studies—to show how human rights shaming is a deeply political process, one that operates in and through strategic relationships. Arguing that preexisting geopolitical relationships condition both the causes and consequences of shaming in world politics, she shows how adversaries are quick to condemn human rights abuses but often provoke a counterproductive response, while friends and allies are the most effective shamers but can be reluctant to impose meaningful sanctions. The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires will be available for purchase at the event. Learn more about Dr. Terman and her book here.
The Georgetown University Lepgold Book Prize honors Joseph S. Lepgold, a Georgetown University Government and School of Foreign Service professor who died in a tragic hotel fire in Paris in December 2001. The prize honors exceptional contributions to the study of international relations, with particular emphasis on the resolution of critical policy challenges, published each calendar year.