Shahana Sheikh

Shahana Sheikh studies political parties, political behavior, and party-voter linkages, with a regional focus on South Asia. Her 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. Shahana completed her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. Her dissertation examined how Internet-based communication technologies—including social media—affect the behavior of political parties and voters in India. She uses a variety of research methods, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, grounded theory, content analysis, surveys, and survey experiments. Prior to her Ph.D., Shahana was a policy researcher in the areas of urban governance and public finance in India. You can read more about her research at shahanasheikh.com.

Photo by Mara Lavitt