Shashwat Dhar

Welcome to my website!

I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Swarthmore College. My research lies at the intersection of comparative political economy and political behavior, with a substantive focus on migration, development, and political representation, and a regional focus on India. My work examines the long-run consequences of internal migration for citizen-state relations and democratic governance in left behind areas. I study how communities locked in cycles of migration due to economic stagnation and environmental change engage with politics, and what that means for political accountability.

I am currently working on two collaborative projects: one examines how environmental shocks interact with political institutions (ethnic quotas) to produce differences in public goods provision, and the other explores how disasters shape political mobilization and government responsiveness in contexts of limited state capacity. All my projects are based in India and draw on a range of methodological approaches, including difference-in-differences and panel designs, household surveys, and immersive ethnographic fieldwork.

My research has received funding from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the American Political Science Association, and University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Advanced Study of India. I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science from Vanderbilt University. Before graduate school, I worked at the Lokniti Programme for Comparative Democracy in New Delhi, where I supervised public opinion surveys across more than ten Indian states.

I also hold an M.A. in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science from Hindu College, University of Delhi.