Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

The George Washington University

Welcome

I am an associate professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University. My research and writing explore how class conflict and compromise intersect with democracy and development. I also have a strong interest in labor standards and understanding how labor unions, nonprofit organizations, consumers and corporations can help to promote them.

At GW, I teach courses on comparative political economy, data science and South Asia. I am on faculty in the Department of Political Science and the Elliott School of International Affairs and am affiliated with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies as well as the Institute for International Economic Policy.

I also serve as one of the managing editors for the Journal of Development Studies.

Download my curriculum vitae.

Interests

  • Comparative political economy
  • Data science
  • South Asia

Education

  • PhD in Government (Political Science), 2006

    Cornell University

  • BA in Political Science and Philosophy, 1997

    John Carroll University

Book

Mobilizing Restraint: Democracy and Industrial Conflict in Post-Reform South Asia

This book argues that democracies are better at managing industrial conflict than authoritarian regimes. This is because democracies …
PDF DOI
Mobilizing Restraint: Democracy and Industrial Conflict in Post-Reform South Asia

Journal Articles

Conquest and Conflict: The Colonial Roots of Maoist Violence in India

Does colonialism have long-term effects on political stability? This question is addressed in a study of India’s Naxalite insurgency, a …
PDF DOI
Conquest and Conflict: The Colonial Roots of Maoist Violence in India

Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian States

Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are …
PDF DOI
Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian States

Foreign Direct Investment, Regime Type, and Labor Protest in Developing Countries

We explore the relationship between FDI, regime type, and strikes in low- and middle-income countries. We argue that FDI produces …
PDF DOI
Foreign Direct Investment, Regime Type, and Labor Protest in Developing Countries

Measuring Trade Union Rights through Violations Recorded in Textual Sources: An Assessment

The author uses item response theory to evaluate the increasingly prominent method of measuring labor rights developed by David Kucera. …
PDF DOI
Measuring Trade Union Rights through Violations Recorded in Textual Sources: An Assessment

Mobilizing Restraint: Economic Reform and the Politics of Industrial Protest in South Asia

The study draws on evidence from South Asia to explore how union partisan ties condition industrial protest in the context of rapid …
DOI
Mobilizing Restraint: Economic Reform and the Politics of Industrial Protest in South Asia
See all publications

Working Papers

Fast Fashion or Clean Clothes? Estimating the Value of Labor Standards

We test the relative strength of consumer preferences for internationally recognized labor rights with a series of conjoint experiments …
PDF Online Appendix

Recent Posts

Working with National Sample Survey (NSS) data in Stata

In recent years, India’s Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has been releasing micro-data for some of the large-scale sample surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). This is kind of cool because, in the past, if you wanted to work with NSS unit-level data you had to purchase it.
Last updated on Jul 7, 2021 17 min read
Working with National Sample Survey (NSS) data in Stata

Using Stata with Markdown

Frequently when I am working in Stata, I find myself really missing the key features of R Markdown, like the ability to intersperse code with text and share my notes with other people in an attractive dynamic HTML or PDF document.
Last updated on Jun 9, 2021 5 min read
Using Stata with Markdown

Steps to create website with blogdown and the Hugo Academic (Wowchemy) theme

These are the steps that I took to set up my website using blogdown and the Hugo Academic (Wochemy) theme. I also did a little “how to” session with some GW political science graduate students where we worked through these steps and got everyone started with a blogdown site.
Last updated on Aug 25, 2021 2 min read hugo academic, blogdown
Steps to create website with blogdown and the Hugo Academic (Wowchemy) theme

Managing publications on your Hugo Academic website

For my first blog post, I thought I would say a little bit about how I set up the publications section of my website. There are a good many tutorials out there on how to set up a website using blogdown and the Hugo Academic theme (my favorite guide is this one by Alison Hill).
Last updated on Mar 9, 2021 4 min read hugo academic, blogdown
Managing publications on your Hugo Academic website

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