I specialize in comparative politics and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on South Asia. My research seeks to illuminate questions of when, why and how government agencies and nongovernmental actors work collectively to address complex societal problems and promote inclusive development, particularly within contexts of inequality. I investigate these questions through comparative field research and original data collection, using multiple field-based methods (e.g., ethnography, interviews, focus group discussions, surveys and field experiments).

Broadly, my research interests include: bureaucratic organization and politics, state capacity, policy implementation, public sector management, local and multi-level governance, institutional theory, education, policing, inequality and social welfare. I am commited to interdisciplinary research and area studies and have a related interest in qualitative and multimethod research.

I have conducted fieldwork in multiple Indian geographies and states: the northern Gangetic plains (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), Himalayan region (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh), national capital region (Delhi and Haryana), northern-central plateau (Madhya Pradesh) and southern coastal region (Karnataka). My research has been supported by the World Bank, M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCDO), Oxford-Research England Global Challenges Research Fund, American Institute for Indian Studies and the NSEP David L. Boren Fellowship Program.

My CV is available here.

The Indian Police: Managing Dilemmas of Internal Security. Forthcoming in Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur, Internal Security in India: Violence, Order and the State, New York: Oxford University Press.

The Indian Police: Administration, Capacity and Performance (with Vineet Kapoor). Forthcoming in Rudra Chaudhury and Milan Vaishnav, The Institutional Roots of India’s Foreign and Security Policy, Oxford University Press.

• Embedded Translation: Local NGOs and Community Mobilization for Child Rights in Rural India (with Thomas Lawrence)
• Becoming the Police: Female Officers, Relational Work and the Pursuit of Inclusion in India
• State Capacity and Organization Studies (with Devarchan Banerjee)
• Engendering Policing: Activating State Capacity for Women’s Security (with Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner and Sandip Sukhtankar)
• Bureaucracy (Chapter in progress for Cambridge Companion to Indian Politics and Society, eds. Indrajit Roy and Manali Desai)

Review of: Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India, by Rina Agarwala, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 67 (4), October 2014.

Preventing Child Labour in the U.P. Carpet Belt, Case Studies of Development in Practice, New Delhi: UNICEF India, 2007 (with Diksha Gupta and Afsoon Houshidari). [PDF]