Shourya Sen

I conduct research on comparative politics and political economy. I study how authoritarian regimes manage social change and build durable ties to their societies, examining how political transformations unfold and persist across generations. My ongoing research studies this question at both micro and macro levels.

I am a scholar of Southeast Asia and have conducted fieldwork in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. My work in Laos and Thailand is based on a community-partnership approach to data collection, including original surveys, genealogies, and oral histories. My fieldwork and data collection in Laos advances knowledge on 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. This published work follows my core agenda of studying social change and cooptation across diverse authoritarian contexts.

I am advised by Carles Boix, Leonard Wantchekon, Rory Truex, and Germán Gieczewski. I am on the 2025-2026 job market.