Rosalyn Cooperman, associate professor of political science, has been named a 2012 recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Jack L. Walker Outstanding Article Award.  The award honors a paper published within the last two years that contributes to the discipline’s understanding of political organizations and parties.

Cooperman co-wrote “Activists and Conflict Extension in American Party Politics,” originally published in the American Political Science Review in 2010, with Geoffrey Layman of the University of Notre Dame, Thomas Carsey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, John Green of the University of Akron and Richard Herrera of Arizona State University.

The article examines the recent growth of party polarization in American politics. Specifically, it identifies party activists as a main source of polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties as party activists with extreme views on a variety of issue dimensions encourage candidates to take non-centrist positions.

The political organizations and parties section of APSA has recognized outstanding articles through the Jack L. Walker Award since 1989. The American Political Science Association, founded in 1903, is the leading professional organization for the study of political science and serves more than 15,000 members across the world.