As 2026 marked the inaugural year of the award, the network conveners extended eligibility to articles published during the previous three years, rather than limiting consideration to those published in the current or preceding year. Articles could be nominated by anyone, including their authors.
We are delighted to announce that the recipients of the AnthroState Best Article Award 2026 are José Ciro Martínez and Omar Sirri for their 2023 article Bureaucraft: Statemakers in Amman and Baghdad
We also thank and congratulate the other three finalists. See below for details.
The selection procedure in 2026
The Jury
The jury consisted of
- two external reviewers both of whom were previously invited to be keynote speakers in AnthroState conferences (in Riga and Amsterdam):
- Rebecca Bryant
- Alice von Bieberstein
- the AnthrState network conveners
The Criteria
Four finalists were selected out of the submitted pool of articles. These were evaluated according to four criteria:
- Contribution to debates in the anthropology of the state;
- Originality and development of the theoretical argument;
- Empirical grounding and analytical depth;
- Overall quality of the article;
The Procedure
The selection of the articles consisted of two stages. First, out of all suggested articles four were selected for the final shortlist. Second, the winner was chosen among the shortlisted Finalists.
