Katherine Bersch

@eltaliawi.bsky.social @sog-rc27.bsky.social
@amangla.bsky.social
@michellefernandez.bsky.social

Sincere thanks to this year’s Levine Prize Committee: Akshay Mangla (chair), Diego Salazar-Morales, and Michelle Fernandez. Stay tuned for the official award announcement and book summary in Governance, the journal of RC27.

The committee was especially impressed by its rigorous multimethod design and original use of Latin American archival sources in Spanish and Portuguese. A must-read for scholars of state building and war.

This powerful book rethinks state formation in 19th-century Latin America, showing how external threats and war shaped state capacity—offering new insights with broad comparative and historical resonance.

On behalf of IPSA’s Research Committee 27 (sponsor of @govjournal.bsky.social), I’m pleased to share that the 2025 Levine Prize Honorable Mention goes to Bringing War Back In by Luis Schenoni @llschenoni.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org.👏

@eltaliawi.bsky.social @sog-rc27.bsky.social
@amangla.bsky.social
@michellefernandez.bsky.social

Sincere thanks to this year’s Levine Prize Committee: Akshay Mangla (chair), Diego Salazar-Morales, and Michelle Fernandez. Stay tuned for the official award announcement and details in Governance, the journal of RC27.

The committee especially praised its theoretical contributions, deep fieldwork in Jordan & Lebanon, and strong commitment to epistemic justice—amplifying Global South voices and offering actionable policy insights.

This timely and transformative book confronts the paradox of refugee governance in the Global South, where states host 83% of the world’s refugees despite limited capacity and resources. It offers an innovative, generalisable framework for analyzing refugee policy.

On behalf of IPSA’s Research Committee 27 (sponsor of
@govjournal.bsky.social), I’m pleased to announce that the 2025 Levine Prize has been awarded to The Politics of Refugee Policy in the Global South by Ola G. El-Taliawi (@mcgillqueensup.bsky.social). 🏆

I spoke recently with Knowable Magazine about how to strengthen bureaucracies. The lessons are even more urgent now.
👉 We need merit-based public service, not politicization.
👉 Reform must build capacity, not undermine it. 5/5
🔗https://t.co/xQ73hPHjJS

📢 There are 17,078 comments.
We need hundreds of thousands.
Why?
• Agencies must consider public comments
• Mass input sends a clear signal
• This is a real way to defend democracy
✍️ Add your comment today:
🔗 regulations.gov/commenton/OP... 4/5

Building a merit-based bureaucracy is one of the hardest—but most vital—achievements of democratic governance.
It improves:
✔️ Economic growth
✔️ Public trust
✔️ Health and service delivery
This rule would undo that. 3/5

✅ Yes, civil service reform is needed.
But it must be:
• Thoughtful
• Evidence-based
• Done through Congress, not executive action
Weakening protections risks politicization, corruption, and capacity loss. 2/5

Denmark: ~25 political appointees
U.S.: ~4,000
Brazil: ~25,000

A proposed rule could push the U.S. over 50,000—gutting career protections for civil servants.

This is how democracies erode.
You can help stop it.

🗓️ Comment by Friday (May 23):
🔗 regulations.gov/commenton/OP...
1/5

This paper examines how political control evolves over time as polit refine their methods to manage the bureaucracy, adopting and testing instruments to determine their effectiveness. These tools foster an environment of fear and control. @kbersch.bsky.social +
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

We’ve seen this before. And, unfortunately, we know how it ends. For more on why radical reforms often backfire and how sustainable reform can succeed, check out Ch. 1 and the conclusion of When Democracies Deliver. 6/6

Institutional reform is possible—but only if pursued carefully, preserving capacity. Big bang reforms feel effective in the moment, but they often degrade the very systems they aim to fix. 5/6

Musk’s DOGE overhaul is a textbook case of a powering reform: flashy, fast-moving, and aimed at breaking things. But that approach risks long-term instability. Governance isn’t about short-term wins—it’s about sustained institutional capacity. 4/6

Why do powering reforms fail? They promise quick fixes and radical change, but they often generate political backlash, performance failures, and eventual reversals. Incremental, sequenced reforms are more sustainable. 3/6

“The most ambitious overhauls of the state … have resulted in serious, long-lasting problems. Overhauls have in some cases sparked cycles of institutional deterioration, with one set of radical changes begetting another, in pendular fashion.” (Ch. 1) 2/6

When Democracies Deliver Cambridge Core - Latin American Government, Politics and Policy - When Democracies Deliver

When I published When Democracies Deliver, people asked if the theory applied to the US. Could “powering” reforms—like those reshaping Latin American states—happen here? The answer, as Musk’s DOGE overhaul shows, is yes. And we know how this ends. 🧵
www.cambridge.org/core/books/w...