Welcome! I am a Professor and the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Chair at the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where I serve as the Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies. I am also currently the President-Elect of the Midwest Political Science Association. I am a Faculty Affiliate at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Data Science Institute, the Elections Research Center, and the Center for South Asia. I was previously the Director of the Center for South Asia.

My research focuses on the political economy of development and migration, and on inequalities in political representation, mainly in South Asia. I am currently working on a book, joint with Saumitra Jha, on the conditions under which mass, nonviolent mobilizations can succeed. I am the co-author, with Bethany Lacina, of a book on the backlash against within-country migration across the developing world, published by Cambridge University Press. My papers have been published in various journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics.

Prior to starting at UW–Madison, I was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. I have worked at the Center for Global Development and the International Monetary Fund, and received a PhD in political science and an MA in economics from Stanford University, and a BA in political science and economics from Yale University. My pronouns are he/him.

Contact Information

Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin–Madison
110 North Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall
Madison, WI 53706
bhavnani`at’wisc.edu