2022-04-27 by Li Bennich-Björkman, illustration: Anna Illeby

What runs and runs but never comes to the door? So went a Swedish riddle I heard as a child. The answer was “The clock.” But it could just as easily have been “Time.” Not only does it run relentlessly and eat away at the 4,000 weeks that an average human life lasts in the richer part of the world, it is also “the same for everybody.” There are 24 hours in a day whether you live in China or New York and in those hours, you have to do everything that keeps you alive: sleep, personal care, household labor including caring for children, and paid labor. What remains of the 24 hours after all of that is done is your “discretionary time,” your spare time. The time you decide what to do with – chill in front of Netflix, go mountain biking in the woods, hang out at the local bar, or simply be. In Discretionary Time. A New Measure of Freedom, Robert Goodin and his co-authors posited the idea that discretionary time might be a resource as important as money to living a good and happy life. The more time a person has control over, once the necessities have been dealt with, the more freedom they have. People have the most of this kind of freedom, or temporal autonomy, in Sweden and the least in the United States.

2022-04-25 by Michal Smrek, illustration: Anna Illeby

Robert E. Goodin is the recipient of the 2022 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. Goodin is awarded the prize for an impressive volume of work in which he “with acuity and success endeavored to blend political philosophy with empirical political science to increase the understanding of how decent and dignified societies can be shaped.”

2021-10-15 by Michal Smrek

The virtual prize award ceremony of the 2020- and 2021 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science was held on October 1, 2021. A video recording of the ceremony is now available for viewing. View it here.

2021-07-04 by Michal Smrek (last update: 2021-09-22), photo: Mikael Wallerstedt

We are happy to announce that we will hold a virtual prize award ceremony to celebrate the 2020- and 2021 Skytte Prize laureates, Peter Katzenstein and David Laitin, on October 1, 2021 at 17:30 CET. Both laureates will deliver their prize winner lectures which will be commented upon by the 2019 Skytte Prize laureate, Margaret Levi. Follow this link to access the event: https://s3m.io/RGrjk

2021-04-15 by Michal Smrek, illustration: Anna Ileby

David D. Laitin, Stanford University, is this year’s recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize, known by many as the ‘Nobel Prize in Political Science’. Professor Laitin is awarded the prize for his

“original and objective explanation of how politics shapes cultural strategies in heterogeneous societies.”

2020-10-22 by Li Bennich-Björkman & Michal Smrek, photos: Mikael Wallerstedt 

It is our sad duty to announce that Count Nils-Axel Mörner, the patron of the Johan Skytte Chair Professorship in Political Science and chairman of the Skytte Foundation, died on October 16, aged 82.Continue Reading..

2020-05-15 by Michal Smrek, illustration: Anna Ileby

The board of the Johan Skytte Foundation has due to the ongoing pandemic taken a decision to not hold the prize-award ceremony, banquet and all other Skytte-Prize-related festivities this year. This year’s laureate, Peter J. Katzenstein, will be celebrated next year together with the 2021 Skytte Prize laureate. The next Skytte Prize award ceremony will take place on October 2, 2021.

Earlier this year, Peter J. Katzenstein has been named the 26th recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. He is awarded the prize for:

furthering the understanding of how history, culture, and norms shape economies, as well as national and global security policy.

2020-04-08 by Michal Smrek, illustration: Anna Ileby

Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University, USA, has been named the 26th recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. He is awarded the prize for:

furthering the understanding of how history, culture, and norms shape economies, as well as national and global security policy.

Katzenstein, born in Hamburg, Germany, has made pioneering contributions in research on the international system and international relations in which he has shown how national culture and history shape national perspectives on security and relations with other countries. By the 1980s, his work had laid the foundations of the field of political economy, in which relations between government, the market, and labor institutions are central. In his empirical research, Peter Katzenstein has specialized in Europe, especially Germany, Asia, especially Japan, and the United States. Katzenstein argues that, rather than moving towards greater congruence, the distinctiveness of national societies is being constantly reproduced, even in a globalized and digitalized world.

The prize ceremony will take place in Uppsala on 3 October 2020.

Read the traditional prize announcement article here. An English translation of the prize announcement article will be available in a week’s time.

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