Welcome
This is the website of Prerna Singh, Assistant Professor at the Department of Government at Harvard University.
My research and teaching interests encompass the field of comparative politics with a regional specialization in South Asia.
My work is centrally concerned with questions of identity politics. Specifically, I seek to understand the causes and consequences of the various manifestations of identity and to explore the relationship of identity politics with institutions and development.
In my primary research project, I ask what accounts for inequalities in social development across subnational units in multi-ethnic democracies? Why, under conditions of identical national regime-types and common constitutional structures, do the citizens of some subnational units experience significantly higher levels of well-being than others? On the basis of my analysis of Indian provinces, I explain this variation as a consequence of differences in the strength of subnational identification.
In a set of related projects I have sought to conceptualize, measure and analyze the sources and implications of the degree of state institutionalization of ethnic categories across time and space.
I am also interested in research methods, especially in the conceptualization and measurement of ‘identity variables’ and in strategies for multi-method research.
On this site you will find more information on my research, publications, teaching & some works-in-progress.