The jury consisting of Nils B Weidmann (University of Konstanz), Hanne Fjelde (Uppsala University) and Michael D Ward (Duke University) has awarded the first JPR Best Visualization Award to Brandon J Kinne (University of Texas at Dallas). The prize-winning article is titled 'IGO membership, network convergence, and credible signaling in militarized disputes' and was published in the November issue. The article relies extensively on graphical figures to communicate the structure of networks that constitute the core focus of the article, as well as the results of the analyses. In doing so, the article relies on simple but effective visualizations, such as network graphs of IGOs. Descriptive findings from the dataset are shown as two-dimensional plots, which visualize variation in networks across time or geographic regions. Statistical results are mainly presented as tables, but are supplemented with simple yet intuitive effect plots, all of which also communicate the uncertainty around the estimated coefficients. Together, these different techniques constitute a great example of how graphical aids can improve the communication of quantitative research in political science.

The article is available online