Shahana Sheikh

Welcome!

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania. I am also a research affiliate at University of Chicago's Center on Democracy. I completed my PhD from Yale University's Department of Political Science.

I study political parties, political behavior, and party-voter linkages, with a regional focus on South Asia. My research agenda is centered on how party strategy, campaigns, and political participation in developing democracies are shaped by significant transformations associated with development—especially, shifts in media and communication technology, urbanization, and environmental degradation. In my research projects, I use a variety of methods, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, grounded theory, content analysis, surveys, and survey experiments.

I have taught courses on Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics, Nationalism & Ethnic Politics, and Statistics.

Previously, I was a policy researcher at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and at the Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore, where I researched issues of urban governance and public finance. I received my master's in public policy and public administration from National University of Singapore and London School of Economics and Political Science; and my bachelor's degree (Hons) in economics from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi.

You can contact me at: shahanas[at]sas.upenn.edu

Photo by Mara Lavitt