Tanushree Goyal

Assistant Professor
Department of Politics
Princeton University
tgoyal@princeton.edu

Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Department of Politics and the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. My research sits at the intersection of comparative politics, development, gender, and political economy, with a particular focus on India and Brazil. I explore fundamental questions about institutions, culture, and democracy, including: What drives inequalities in access to political office and in political participation? How and under what conditions do decentralized political institutions enhance accountability, foster collective action, and drive systemic change to improve human welfare? How does culture shape politics, and can politics drive cultural change?

My work employs a diverse range of methodological approaches, including natural, survey, and field experiments, large-scale and long-form surveys, in-depth qualitative fieldwork, and high-resolution administrative data. My research has been published in leading political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. It has also been widely covered in national and international media, and I have contributed opinion editorials to The Indian Express.

My scholarship has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in political science, including the Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Award in Political Economy (2022) and the Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democracy & Autocracy (2023). I serve as an Associate Editor at World Politics and I am a member of EGAP, J-PAL, EGEN, and the UK’s Political Economy Group.

Before joining Princeton, I was a postdoctoral scholar at the Harvard Academy and a non-resident visiting fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Oxford in 2021 as a member of Nuffield College. Before transitioning to political science, I completed a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Book manuscript

Representation from Below: The Grassroots Origins of Women's Political Power [Abstract]

 

Publications

  1. Goyal T. 2024 Local political representation as a pathway to power: A natural experiment in India American Journal of Political Science 00 1-15. [Abstract] [Awards]  
  2. Goyal T and Sells C. 2023 Descriptive Representation and Party Building: Evidence from Municipal Governments in Brazil American Political Science Review 118(4):1840-1855. [Abstract]  
  3. Goyal T. 2024 Representation from Below: How Women’s Grassroots Party Activism Promotes Equal Political Participation American Political Science Review 118(3), 1415–1430. [Abstract] [Awards] [Media]  
  4. Goyal T. 2024 Do Citizens Enforce Accountability for Public Goods Provision? Evidence from India's Rural Roads Program Journal of Politics 86:1 97-112. [Abstract] [Media]  

Working Papers

  1. How gender quotas undo backlash to women in politics [Abstract]  
  2. Is Ethnic Violence Self-Perpetuating? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Hindu-Muslim Riots in India (with Sam Van Noort) [Abstract]  
  3. Do Voters in Local Elections Prefer Campaign Promises About Attributable Policies? (with Robin Harding) [Abstract]  
  4. Does Local Leadership Lower Bias in Law Enforcement? Evidence from Experiments with India’s Rural Politicians (with Sam Van Noort and Mats Ahrenshop) [Abstract]