Crawley Prize Winners 2024-25

Congratulations to the 2024-25 Crawley Prize winners!

Our alumnus, Andrew Crawley, has generously provided funds to allow us to award prizes for the best MPhil thesis and best MSc dissertation.

Crawley Prize for best MPhil Thesis

Luciana Fortuna

In her thesis titled "Breaking the Balance: How Peru's Congress Consolidated Power in a Fragmented System," Luciana analyzes how Peru's system of checks and balances has been altered since 2016, with Congress consolidating power by way of weakening the executive through the repeated use of the impeachment mechanism. This dynamic contributed to a prolonged period of political instability and interbranch clashes, during which Peruvians had six different presidents between 2016 and 2023. Using the qualitative method of process tracing to systematically examine each confrontation between the legislature and the executive, the thesis explores how Peru's Congress, despite operating within a highly fragmented party system, has managed to achieve cooperation to consolidate its authority. As part of her research, Luciana spent two months in Lima conducting interviews with congresspeople and former presidents.

In the near future, she hopes to expand on this research and pursue a DPhil in Politics with a comparative project.

Crawley Prize for best MSc Dissertation

To be announced at a later date.