Prakash recognized for lifetime achievement

Aseem Prakash, University of Washington professor of political science and Walker Family Professor in Arts and Sciences, received the 2025 John Gaus Award from the American Political Science Association. The award is presented annually to honor “a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration.” As an integral element of this recognition, Professor Prakash presented the 2025 Gaus Lecture, “Climate Change, Governance Failures, and Public Administration,” at the recent annual conference of the American Political Science Association.*

Prakash is founding director of the UW Center for Environmental Politics, which includes more than 45 faculty associates and over 60 graduate and undergraduate fellows. At the global level, he founded the Environmental Politics and Governance (EPG) network.

As noted in his nomination letter, Prakash is best known for path-breaking research on the role that private actors — including firms and non-governmental organizations — can play in promoting more stringent environmental standards, even in the absence of effective state intervention. His research has helped to bring “environment” into public administration in a variety of ways, including how businesses and NGOs can fill governance gaps. At the same time, he has explored how these nontraditional governance mechanisms could lead to issues such as regulatory capture and accountability deficits. More recently, Prakash has explored different dimensions of climate mitigation and adaptation.

Prakash’s extensive publications include eight scholarly books and more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as 180 op-eds and commentaries for the broader public in venues including Forbes.com, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Slate, Huffington Post, The Conversation, and The Hill. Google Scholar lists well over 18,000 citations to his work. He is the founding editor of the Cambridge University Press “Business and Public Policy” series as well as the Cambridge Elements “Organizational Response to Climate Change” series. In its annual ranking of scholars in various disciplines, research.com  listed Prakash among the top 100 political scientists worldwide.

In addition, Prakash supports the work of graduate students. He has chaired 21 Ph.D. committees and has served as an active member in 19 other doctoral committees, with his advisees securing faculty positions at respected universities across the globe.

“We are thrilled that Professor Aseem Prakash, one of our most distinguished scholars, is being honored for lifetime achievement by his peers,” says Andrea Woody, divisional dean of the social sciences in the UW College of Arts & Sciences. “With groundbreaking contributions to the field of environmental politics, deep and enduring commitment to training the next generation of scholars, and exceptional ability to share his expertise with the public, Prakash has made a lasting impact at the University and in society more broadly.”

Prakash received a B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and a joint Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington. He joined the University of Washington faculty in 2002.

* Aseem Prakash’s 2025 Gaus Lecture, “Climate Change, Governance Failures, and Public Administration,” will be published in the January 2026 issue of the American Political Science Association’s flagship Journal, PS Political Science & Politics.