Website: http://vaishnavmilan.wordpress.com/

Advisors: Maria Victoria Murillo, Devesh Kapur and Macartan Humphreys

Dissertation: "The Merits of Money and "Muscle": How Serious Criminality Affects Democracy in India"

Research Interests: corruption; criminality in politics; election finance; political economy of development; South Asia; India

Biography:

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University in New York and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (from 2011-2012) at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.  Currently, I am also an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI) at Georgetown University.  

My dissertation examines the role of money and serious criminality in Indian electoral politics. My general areas of interest are corruption, crime and politics, and election finance, especially in India and South Asia.  I am also involved in research on Latin America around issues of left politics.

I hold a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. and M.Phil in Political Science from Columbia.  Prior to Columbia, I worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Center for Global Development.