Shourya Sen

I conduct research on comparative politics and political economy. My ongoing research focuses on coalition building, cooptation, and societal change in autocracies. More generally, I have diverse and interdisciplinary interests broadly centered on studying the long-run determinants of inequality, growth, and political order in developing countries.

I have an area expertise in Southeast Asia and have conducted fieldwork in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. My fieldwork and data collection in Laos advances knowledge on peripheral communities in the borderlands of the country about whom little is known in any academic field. I have also written on colonialism in India and the history and political economy of education in Sub-Saharan Africa. I am advised by Carles Boix, Leonard Wantchekon, Rory Truex, and Germán Gieczewski.