Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia

Siddharth Swaminathan is currently a visiting research affiliate at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University. He received an MA and PhD in political science from the Claremont Graduate University in 2001. His research focuses on urban governance, state capacity and subnational comparative politics in India. He has previously held faculty positions at Azim Premji University, the Institute for Social and Economic Change, La Sierra University, and California State University. He has published in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Studies in International Comparative Development, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Social Science and Medicine, Economic and Political Weekly, International Interactions, among others. He is the co-author (with Suhas Palshikar) of “Politics and Society between Elections in India” (2021) - a study of subnational socio-political attitudes. He is also a member of the Lokniti Network.

His most recent publications include: Statistical Methods and Political Analysis: Examining the 'Economic Vote' in Indian Parliamentary Elections (Knowing the Social World: Challenges and Responses, 2015) and Politics, Development, and Deaths: Comparing China and India (Konark Publishers Private Ltd, 2015).

Swaminathan was a visiting scholar from March to April 2015.