Barry Rabe, the Arthur Thurnau Professor Emeritus of Environmental Policy and distinguished political science scholar, has won the 2025 American Political Science Association (APSA) Science, Technology, and Environment Policy (STEP) Section's Elinor Ostrom Career Achievement Award. Named after renowned political scientist Elinor Ostrom, the annual award is granted to a scholar with lifelong contributions to the study of science, technology, and environmental politics.
The Ostrom Career Achievement Award recognizes Rabe's decades of work in environmental and energy policy. His books, including the nationally acclaimed Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate Policy (Brookings Institution, 2004), focus on the political feasibility and durability of environmental and energy policy. In reference to his groundbreaking research, the APSA selection committee praised Rabe's "rare ability to produce research that has both extraordinary intellectual merit and public policy relevance."
Rabe also researches political and policy issues in the context of federalism. His 2020 Brookings Institution Press co-authored book, Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism, examines the first Trump administration's use of executive power in healthcare, climate change, and education policy.
His career in environmental policy has been marked by other numerous prestigious awards, including a Climate Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2006, the APSA 2007 Daniel Elazar Award for Career Contribution to the Study of Federalism, and the APSA 2005 Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize.
Rabe taught at the University of Michigan for 39 years, holding positions in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), and the School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). In his post-Michigan career, Rabe served as a Global Fellow for the Wilson Center and currently works as a Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies.
The award was presented to Rabe at the APSA's Vancouver meeting this past September.
