Davin Phoenix (PhD, U-M Political Science and Ford School, 2015) has just won APSA's Ralph J. Bunche award for his 2019 book, The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotions in Politics (Cambridge University Press). The award goes to the best scholarly work on ethnic and cultural pluralism. The book grows out of his dissertation, which was advised by Ted Brader and Vince Hutchings (co-chairs), Nancy Burns, and Ann Lin.
Ralph Bunche was the first African-American awarded a PhD in Political Science, chaired Howard University's Department of Government for two decades, helped Gunnar Myrdal write An American Dilemma (see Bunche's separate research monograph), won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his work as United Nations mediator in helping end 1949's Arab-Israeli war, and later served as Under-Secretary General of the UN.
Davin Phoenix is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, where he specializes and teaches courses in African American politics, political participation, public opinion, and local politics. His research broadly focuses on how race interacts with various spheres of U.S. politics to shape the attitudes, emotions and behavior of both everyday people and elites.
