William Genieys, CNRS Research Professor at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, has been named this year’s 2025 Louis Brownlow Book Award Winner for his latest volume: A Government of Insiders. The People Who Made the Affordable Care Act Possible (John Hopkins University Press, 2024). 

The book uncovers the pivotal role of a committed group of unelected governmental elites that shaped one of the most significant health care reforms in US history. It represents the culmination of William Genieys' theorisation of the role of these elites in liberal democracy.

The committee appointed by the US National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), composed of academics and public administration officials, lauded its fresh insights into how governmental institutions function and endure. 

Since 1968, the Louis Brownlow Book Award has recognised outstanding contributions on topics of wide contemporary interest to practitioners and scholars in the field of public administration. Generally, it is awarded to an author who provides new insights, fresh analysis, and original ideas that contribute to the understanding of the role of governmental institutions and how they can most effectively serve the public. The prize is awarded in memory of Louis Brownlow, a political scientist and prominent US statesman who, under Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, instigated the creation of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

William Genieys will receive the award in Washington D.C.on November 3, during the NAPA 2025 National Conference (November 2-4).

He has also been granted a scholarship from Sciences Po’s Transatlantic Research Fund, that will allow him to present his book at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health on November 7. 

The book had previously won a Best Book Award by the International Public Policy Association. 

More information:

• Learn about the Louis Brownlow Book Award.
• Learn about the book A Government of Insiders.
• Read an interview with William Genieys (English translation) about the French version of this book
• Watch a video presentation of the book by William Genieys: