Bhumi Purohit, Ph.D.

bhumi.purohit@gmail.com


Assistant Professor

Georgetown University

Year of PhD: 2022

Country: United States (District of Columbia)

About Me:

I am an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School. I focus on comparative politics, political behavior, and South Asia. The primary objective of my research is to understand the behavioral and institutional barriers to women's political representation. I am motivated by questions such as: why do women's interests remain under-represented in politics, even with parity of electoral representation? How do gender biases about women politicians affect public service delivery outcomes in women’s constituencies? Additionally, a secondary research agenda focuses on answering the question: how do institutional norms influence the behavior of bureaucrats and politicians? I situate my research in South Asia and employ multi-method research techniques, including primary surveys, experimental work, and in-depth qualitative fieldwork.

Research Interests

Gender and Politics

Bureaucracy

Development

Experimental Research

Political Psychology

Countries of Interest

India

My Research:

My first book project titled Laments of Getting Things Done: Bureaucratic Resistance Against Female Politicians in India, based on my dissertation, examines how bureaucrats' explicit and implicit gender biases, combined with their career incentives, drive bureaucratic resistance—bureaucrats' refusal to aid in policy implementation. Bureaucratic resistance particularly impacts female politicians, and subsequently leads to worse public service delivery outcomes in their constituencies. While existing research has studied the impact of political parties and voters in limiting women politicians’ electoral advancement, my project provides the first theoretical and empirical account elucidating why and how bureaucracies create barriers for women once they are elected to office. This research is generously supported by the Institute of International Studies (UC Berkeley), the Weiss Family Fund, and the Center for Politics of Development, and the Center on Contemporary India (UC Berkeley).
My second research agenda focuses on the behavioral and institutional challenges to public service delivery. In a co-authored book project, Public Financial Management, State Capacity, and Public Services in India, Santhosh Mathew, Devesh Sharma, and I examine how a poorly designed public expenditure system in India guides the behavior of politicians and bureaucrats in a way that harms public service delivery. T

Media Appearances:

Radio Appearances:

(2021) Ideas of India Podcast

In this episode, Shruti Rajagopalan talks with Bhumi Purohit about female leaders’ access to networks, gender quotas, expanding women’s access to social and political capital, and much more.

Other:

(2022) Seminar Magazine, Vol. 752 (She Rules : A symposium on the political representation of women)

While gender quotas have made extremely important strides for women in politics and society, further research is needed on the precise challenges to women’s ability to govern at all levels of politics. If women have to face male dominated institutions such as bureaucracies and political parties, are they able to get the same work done as male politicians – and in the same amount of time?

(2019) Live Mint

Lack of co-gender voting may partly explain low female representation in legislatures in India, an analysis of survey data suggests

(2017) Live Mint

By fixing India's public finance management system, lives could be saved and corruption detected when it does arise

(2016) Live Mint

Poverty is rarely a binary state of being poor or not. It may be anything between destitution and moderate poverty