iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

I have found more academics flocking to LinkedIn and see a lot more working papers being shared there...but again, I don't think I am consuming SM as much as I did earlier.

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Reposted by Rithika Kumar

Feyaad Allie @feyaadallie.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

We will host a South Asia APSA pre-conference at Harvard on Sept 2. If you would like to present a paper, serve as a discussant, or only attend the workshop or happy hour, please submit your info by March 15 (extended deadline): forms.gle/ZDau8Jm86kJt... Feel free to circulate widely!

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined online and in person for this edition of Texas Comparative circle. Hope to see you next year!

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Wrote a short article for @voxdev.bsky.social using results from my primary data collection. This article is based on a forthcoming @thejop.bsky.social piece where I argue that male migration is an under-examined pathway for female political engagement. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.com

Left Behind or Left Ahead? Implications of Male Migration on Female Political Engagement

How does the temporary absence of men from the household due to migration affect female political engagement? While studies on gender and politics have establis

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Excited to share that this paper is now forthcoming at the Journal of Politics. It has been a looooooong journey (5 years in the making)! Too many people to thank but most importantly my advisors, three anonymous reviewers and the people of Bihar - forever indebted to their generosity. #gendersky

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Rather than undermining the effectiveness of quotas, we argue there exists significant variation in the ability of women to be de facto leaders that needs further examination.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

The validation exercise provides evidence in favor of our measure as a robust predictor of proxy status. However, the disproportionate role played by male family members in female reserved village councils (vis a vis unreserved councils) is striking.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Using a phone measure can possibly overestimate proxy status. So, in a subset of villages we correlate the phone and citizen measures. We find that citizens were significantly more likely to correctly name their female mukhiya if she also responded to our phone survey herself.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

We also find interesting heterogenous effects by state. As expected, female politicians are significantly less likely to be proxies in Maharastra than Bihar. Remember, not only is MH more developed, it also implanted quotas about 9 years before Bihar.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Positive takeaway: There is significant variation in proxy status i.e.not all women are proxies! The ability of women to be de facto leaders varies significantly. However, 30 years since quotas were implemented, there is a consistent gender gap in proxy status across our measures

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Drawing on our fieldwork, we called ~1000 politicians in Bihar and Maharashtra to respond to our governance related phone survey and identified who *actually* responds to it. We supplement this with an in-person citizen survey where respondents had to name their village leaders.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

During our fieldwork we saw husbands sitting in the female mukhiya's chair and even campaign posters for women with their husband photos (see below). Beyond these anecdotes, how widespread are proxy leaders? We develop & validate a measure of proxy leadership to address this

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

📣📣Excited to share a new working paper with @priyadarshi-amar.bsky.social and Apurva Bamezai. We develop and validate a phone-based measure to assess the magnitude of 'proxy' female politicians in gender-reserved villages in India. Full paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Reposted by Rithika Kumar

Rice University Political Science @ricepolisci.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

We are excited to host @dramyhliu.bsky.social for our Hudspeth Lecture Series! She will be speaking on the "The Missing Asians of Asian Americans" on Friday, January 31 at 12 pm in Duncan Hall 1064.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

This paper is about 35 pages but was written while sipping chai across multiple continents – in coffee shops, shady hotel rooms and expansive corn fields.

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Rithika Kumar @rithikakumar.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

I’m new here & thought I'd share a snippet of my work! In this working paper I use a face-to-face survey exp, an original survey and a panel to show that the male migration disrupts the household status quo by creating the routine absence of men leading to the feminization of political engagement.

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