Kathryn Sikkink elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, will be inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Political Science (AAPSS) in 2021.

The AAPSS inducts a cohort of Fellows each year in recognition of their contributions to the advancement of science and deepening of public understanding of human behavior and social dynamics. Sikkink will be one of five Fellows recognized this year. With their addition, there will be 145 Fellows of the AAPSS in total, most of whom are university-based scholars responsible for research that changes our understanding of human behavior and the world in which we live.

“At a moment in history when the nation has trapped its democracy, economy, and society in what feels like endless self-inflicted wounds, it falls on the social sciences to explain how the traps were set and where to find exit ramps,” said Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University and President of the AAPSS. “Each of our 2021 Fellows excel at exactly this. For that, the Academy thanks them and salutes them.”

Sikkink, a political scientist, works on international norms and institutions, transnational advocacy networks, the impact of human rights law and policies, and transitional justice.  Her publications include The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities; Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century; and The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics (awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Center Book Award, and the WOLA/Duke University Award). The AAPSS noted her recent work on the relationship between individual liberty and collective responsibilities.

Sikkink is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the editorial board of International Organization and the American Political Science Review.

She and her fellow inductees will officially join the AAPSS at an event planned for the fall.