The Albert O. Hirschman Prize is the highest award of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). It recognizes academic excellence in international, interdisciplinary social science research, theory, and public communication in the tradition of the German-born American economist for whom it is named.

It makes sense that the SSRC honors Hirschman in this way, for he was, as one biographical summary puts it, a “maverick economist.” The same biography says that Hirschman lived in “the grey zone between economic and political theory,” forging connections between them in unusual and extremely creative ways (homepage.newschool.edu/het//profiles/hirschm.htm). His work in development economics insisted on attention to local structures and indigenous resources, arguing against the application of formal models and standard criteria, the dominant approach of modernization theorists. Ever concerned about political democracy, he explored its relationship to economics.