Dr Bhumi Purohit, an Indian American researcher, was bestowed with the William Anderson Award 2023. The American Political Science Association (APSA) presents the William Anderson Award every year as a mark of distinction for a dissertation in the general field of federalism or intergovernmental relations, state, and local politics.Dr Bhumi Purohit is an assistant professor of public policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School.
The APSA acknowledged Bhumi Purohit’s research into behavioural and institutional barriers to women’s political representation and public service delivery. The paper also received APSA’s Women, Gender, and Politics Section’s Best Dissertation Award this year, the researcher revealed.
This was the first study to systematically examine the bureaucratic resistance at the local level, three decades after decentralization reforms introduced quotas for women in local elections, as observed by the award committee of APSA.
“Local bureaucrats are often described as being forced to ration resources and time. This very fine contribution to our understanding of local politics and power in India provides a convincing explanation for how they make such decisions,” the citation from the award committee read.
The committee includes Professor Louise Tillin of King’s College London, Dr Charles R. Hankla of Georgia State University, and Professor Sara Niedzwiecki of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Reacting to the development Dr Bhumi Purohit said, “Bureaucratic resistance particularly impacts female politicians, and subsequently leads to worse public service delivery outcomes in their constituencies.”
Her first book titled Laments of Getting Things Done: Bureaucratic Resistance Against Female Politicians in India, examined how bureaucrats’ explicit and implicit gender biases, combined with their career incentives, drive bureaucratic resistance.
Before Georgetown, Dr Purohit was a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology. She worked as a J-PAL Policy Consultant for the Ministry of Rural Development in India to create policy implementation plans for finance management reforms and rural poverty reduction. She completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her master’s degree in Area Studies from the University of Oxford; and a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from Duke University. She also earned a certificate in documentary filmmaking.
American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, it publishes four academic journals: American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Political Science Education, and PS: Political Science & Politics. APSA Organized Sections publish or are associated with 15 additional journals.
APSA presidents serve one-year terms. The current president is John Ishiyama of the University of North Texas. Woodrow Wilson, who later became President of the United States, was APSA president in 1909.
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