Global Enlightenment Essay Competition 2025-26
250 years since 1776: Adam Smith and American Democracy
2026 marks 250 years since 1776, an inflection point in the intellectual history of classical liberalism and Enlightenment thought. The Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, whilst Adam Smith published his Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. This was built upon hundreds of years of humanist, rationalist, political, and philosophical inquiries that came before, and served as the foundation for the liberal, tolerationist, and democratic treatises that defined the 18th century Enlightenment and beyond.
To mark this anniversary, we welcome students to submit an essay appraising the intellectual history of Adam Smith and America’s democracy with an eye to their application to the Middle East and the Islamic world, a realm underrepresented in the scholarship and popular thought of Enlightenment. But we wish for this competition to not just be backwards-facing but forward-looking, tracing elements of the past and assessing their relationship with the present. Students are encouraged to take a critical approach to contemporary scholarship, questioning academic consensus whilst using relevant literature to advance new arguments rooted in primary sources and historical context.
Students are invited to write a syncretic essay combining three questions that must all be answered. Students are invited to come up with their own essay title and thesis combining these three elements. These three questions are:
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Explain both 1) the context of the philosophers associated with those ideas, and 2) whether they are compatible with Islamic principles.
How can Enlightenment principles be found to have influenced both 1) Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and 2) the founding of the United States of America?
To what extent does modern American democracy match the vision of its Founders?
Essays will be judged in-house by the Adam Smith Institute and an associated board of academics. Essays will be graded on: force of argument, ability to draw a unifying argument across the three questions, historical and literary grounding, treatment of primary sources and academic literature, novelty, clarity of argument, and intellectual rigour. All essays will be passed through AI detection software and essays detected to have content written using AI will be rejected. Essays that do not meet the format will be rejected.
Winners will be invited to present at an academic conference in central London, scheduled for Saturday, 6th June 2026. Prizes will be given for first, second and third place. Prizes are conditional on attendance of the conference mentioned prior.
Prizes: £5,000 for first place, £3,000 for second place, and £2,000 for third place.
Eligibility: Undergraduate and master’s students aged 18 - 24.
Format: 5,000 word limit (excluding footnotes and bibliography). Chicago citation. Full bibliography required. British English. Academic style. Double-justified margins. Times New Roman font. 1.5 or double line spacing. Numbered pages.
Submissions are OPEN. The deadline for submission is 31st March 2026 at midnight BST (UK time).