William Genieys, CNRS Research Professor at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, has been awarded a Best Book Award by the International Public Policy Association (IPPA) for his latest book: A Government of Insiders. The People Who Made the Affordable Care Act Possible (John Hopkins University Press, 2024). This book is the culmination of his theorization of the role of unelected governmental elites in liberal democracy. 

The jury noted that the book “presents an impressive, ambitious, and engaging long-term account of the social backgrounds of US elites, backed by considerable research to quantify their number and profile. Genieys offers an original interpretation of Obama's healthcare reform as an alternative to the mainstream ‘political bargain‘ interpretation and of Heclo's ‘government of strangers’, explaining the role played in the reform process by senior bureaucrats in the US administration.”

William Genieys told us about this book in a video interview last year:

The IPPA Best Book Award is awarded biennially and given to a single- or co-authored monograph that makes an original and significant theoretical, methodological and/or empirical contribution to the field of Public Policy and/or Public Administration. 

William Genieys is the first political scientist from France to receive the award, that will be presented during the Gala dinner of the 7th International Conference on Public Policy on July 3rd (in Chiang Mai, Thailand).

In addition to this award, William Genieys has been granted a Book Tour scholarship from Sciences Po’s Transatlantic Research Fund, that will allow him to present his book in several US universities. 

More information

• About the IPPA Best Book Award
• About A Government of Insiders
• Read an interview with William Genieys (English translation) about the French version of this book