The Leonard D. White prize, supported by the University of Chicago is awarded yearly for the best dissertation in the field of public administration. It is named after historian Leonard D. White
| Year | Author (Institution) | Dissertation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Kaylyn Jackson Schiff Emory University | The Digital Citizen: The Impact of Technology on Public Participation and Government Responsiveness | |
| 2022 | Sarah James Harvard University | When is Hindsight 20/20? The Politics of Acknowledging and Revising Failed Policies | |
| 2021 | Anthony DeMattee Emory University | Domesticating Civil Society: How and Why Governments Use Laws to Regulate CSOs | |
| 2020 | Angela Young-Shin Park University of Kansas | Beyond Adoption: The Influence of Local Institutional Arrangements on Sustainability Policy Implementation and Management | |
| 2019 | Chad Levinson University of Chicago | Moral Subsidy: The Origins of Influential Extra-Governmental Organizations in US National Security Politics | |
| 2018 | Jennifer Mei Jun Yim University of Utah | Delinquency's Treatment: Why Interactions Produce Policy and Identity in Secure Juvenile Facilities | |
| 2017 | Alan Zarychta University of Colorado at Boulder | It Takes More Than a Village: Governance and Public Services in Developing Countries | |
| 2016 | Bruce Jones University of Texas, Dallas | An fMRI Study of the Reward Preferences of Government and Business Leaders | |
| 2015 | Katharine Bradley University of Michigan | Who Lobbies the Lobbyists? Bureaucratic Influence on State Medicaid Legislation | |
| 2014 | Viridiana Rios Harvard University | How Government Structure Encourages Criminal Violence: The causes of Mexico's Drug War | |
| 2011 | Amanda M. Girth American University | Accountability and Discretion in the Age of Contracting: When and Why Do Public Managers Implement Sanctions for Unsatisfactory Contract Performance? | |
| 2010 | Mikhail Pryadilnikov Harvard University | The State and Markets in Russia: Understanding the Development of Bureaucratic Implementation Capacities through the Study of Regulatory Reform, 2001–2008 | |
| 2009 | Zachary Oberfield University of Wisconsin–Madison | Becoming the Man: How Street-Level Bureaucrats Develop Their Workplace Identities and Views | |
| 2008 | Matthew Dull University of Wisconsin | The Politics of Results: Comprehensive Reform and Institutional Choice | |
| 2007 | Daniel W. Gingerich Harvard University | Corruption in General Equilibrium: Political Institutions and Bureaucratic Performance in South America | |
| 2006 | David Pitts University of Georgia | Diversity, Representation and Performance: Evidence about Ethnicity in Public Organizations | |
| 2005 | Sergio Fernandez University of Georgia | Explaining Contracting Effectiveness: An Empirical Analysis of Contracting for Services among Local Governments | |
| 2004 | Neal D. Woods (University of Kentucky) and Young Han Chun (University of Georgia) | Rethinking Regulation: Institutions and Interests in State Regulatory Enforcement and Goal Ambiguity in Public Organizations: Dimensions, Antecedents, and Comparisons | |
| 2003 | No Award Given | Not Applicable | |
| 2002 | Gregory Huber Princeton University | Interests & Influence: Explaining Patterns of Enforcement in Government Regulation of Occupational Safety | |
| 2001 | Jered Carr Florida State University | The Political Economy of Local Government Boundary Change: State Laws, Local Actors and Collective Action | |
| 2000 | William W. Newmann University of Pittsburgh | The Pattern of Foreign Policy Decision Making: Developing an Evolutionary Model | |
| 1999 | Mark Cassell University of Wisconsin–Madison | Public Agencies in a Private World: A Comparison of the Federal Republic of Germany's Treuhandanstalt and the United States' Resolution Trust Corporation | |
| 1998 | Craig W. Thomas University of California, Berkeley | Bureaucratic Landscapes: Interagency Cooperation and the Preservation of Biodiversity | |
| 1997 | Amy Zegart Stanford University | In Whose Interest? The Making of American National Security Agencies | |
| 1996 | Sally Coleman Selden University of Georgia | Representative Bureaucracy: Examining the Potential for Administrative Responsiveness | |
| 1995 | Robert C. Lieberman Harvard University | Race and the Development of the American Welfare State from the New Deal to the Great Society | |
| 1994 | Marissa Martino Golden University of California, Berkeley | Bureaucratic Behavior in a Political Setting: Reactions to the Reagan Administration in Four Federal Agencies | |
| 1993 | James Anthony Falk University of Georgia | Explaining Infant Mortality: An Assessment of County Governments in Georgia | |
| 1992 | Bartholomew H. Sparrow University of Chicago | From the Outside In: The Effects of World War II on the American State | |
| 1991 | Alan Abramson Yale University | Responsive Budgeting: The Accommodation of Federal Budgeting to Different Programs and Spending Regimes | |
| 1990 | Shui Yan Tang Indiana University | Institutions and Collective Action in Irrigation Systems | |
| 1989 | Roy T. Meyers University of Michigan | Microbudgetary Strategies and Outcomes | |
| 1988 | Chris C. Demchak University of California, Berkeley | War, Technological Complexity, and the U.S. Army | |
| 1987 | John DiIulio, Jr. Harvard University | Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional Management | |
| 1986 | Elisabeth Hollister Sims University of California, Berkeley | Rural Development and Public Policy: Agricultural Institutions and Technological Change in the Indian and Pakistani Punjab | |
| 1985 | Donald W. Chisholm University of California, Berkeley | Informal Organization and the Problem of Coordination | |
| 1984 | Rondal B. Hoskins University of Georgia | Within-Year Appropriations Changes in Georgia State Government: The Implications for Budget Theory | |
| 1983 | John Swain Northern Illinois University | An Evaluation of the Public Choice Approach to Structuring Local Government in Metropolitan Areas | |
| 1982 | Judith Gruber Yale University | Democracy versus Bureaucracy: The Problem of Democratic Control | |
| 1981 | J. Serge Taylor University of California, Berkeley | Environmentalists in the Bureaucracy: Environmental Impact Analysis in the Forest Service and the Army Corps of Engineers | |
| 1980 | John Edward Chubb University of Minnesota | Interest Groups and the Bureaucracy: The Politics of Energy | |
| 1979 | Daniel S. Metlay University of California, Berkeley | Error Correction in Bureaucracy | |
| 1978 | Frederic Allan Bergerson Vanderbilt University | The Army Gets an Air Force: The Tactics and Process of Insurgent Bureaucratic Politics | |
| 1977 | George Woodrow Downs, Jr. University of Michigan | Bureaucracy, Innovation and Public Policy | |
| 1976 | Robert Rich University of Chicago | An Investigation of Information Gathering and Handling in Seven Federal Bureaucracies: A Case Study of the Continuous National Survey | |
| 1975 | Arnold Kanter Yale University and Harry Kranz American University | The Organizational Politics of National Security Policy: A Budgetary Perspective and A More Representative Bureaucracy: The Adequacy and Disability of Minority and Female Population Parity in Public Employment | |
| 1974 | James Norris Danziger Stanford University | Budget-Making and Expenditure Variations in English County Boroughs | |
| 1973 | Douglas T. Yates, Jr. Yale University | Neighborhood Democracy: The Politics and Impacts of Decentralization | |
| 1972 | Ezra N. Suleiman Columbia University and Jessica Wolf Yale University | Administration, Politics and the Higher Civil Service in France and Toward a Model of Inter-organizational Behavior: Two Case Studies in France | |
| 1971 | Larry B. Hill Tulane University | The International Transfer of Political Institutions: A Behavioral Analysis of the New Zealand Ombudsman | |
| 1970 | Gary W. Wynia University of Wisconsin, Madison | Policy and Bureaucracy in Center America: A Comparative Study | |
| 1969 | Russell Murphy Yale University | Policy Innovation and Political Strategy in an American City: The Formative Years of New Haven, Connecticut's Anti-Poverty Project | |
| 1968 | Clyde D. McKee, Jr. University of Connecticut | The Politics of Council-Manager Forms Having and Not Having the Partisan Election | |
| 1967 | John Patrick Crecine Carnegie Institute of Technology | A Computer Simulation Model of Municipal Resource Allocation | |
| 1966 | No award given | Not applicable | |
| 1965 | No award given | Not applicable | |
| 1964 | No award given | Not applicable | |
| 1963 | Karl A. Hochschwender Yale University | The Politics of Civil Service Reform in West Germany | |
| 1962 | Simon D. Perry Michigan State University | The Conflict of Expectations and Roles in Policy Science Behavior | |
| 1961 | Laurin L. Henry University of Chicago | Presidential Transitions | |
| 1960 | Daniel J. Elazar University of Chicago | Intergovernmental Relations in Nineteenth Century American Federalism | |
| 1959 | Dean E. Mann University of California, Berkeley | The Administration of Water Resources in the State of Arizona |