biography

Dr Maya Tudor is the Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and Fellow at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford. 

She was educated at Stanford University (BA in Economics) and Princeton University (MPA in Development Studies and PhD in Politics and Public Policy). She has held fellowships at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Oxford University’s Centre for the Study of Inequality and Democracy, and Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Her research investigates the origins of effective and democratic states with a regional focus on South Asia. She is the authos of two books: The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan(2013) and Varieties of Nationalism (with Harris Mylonas, 2023), and has authored over twenty peer-reviewed articles in Comparative Politics, Party Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Annual Review of Political Science, and Indian Politics and Policy.

Her writing has also appeared in policy outlets such as Foreign Affairs, The Hindu, New Statesman, Washington Post, Indian Express, and Journal of Democracy. Maya is a regular commentator on elections and the state of democracy in media outlets, including the BBC and The Guardian.

Before embarking on an academic career, Maya worked as a Special Assistant to Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz at the World Bank, at UNICEF, in the United States Senate, and at the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. A dual citizen of Germany and the United States, she has lived and worked in Bangladesh, Germany, France, India, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States.

External link

www.mayatudor.com

Recent publications

"Authoritarianism in South Asia" in Oxford Handbook of Authoritarian Politics, Forthcoming 2024.

"Pakistan's Coming Crisis" (with Adeel Malik). Journal of Democracy, July 2024.

"Re-defined Indian-ness and the decline of India's democracy" in The Troubling State of India's Democracy, 2024.

"Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities" (with Harris Mylonas). Cambridge University Press, July 2023.

"Why India's Democracy is Dying", Journal of Democracy, June 2023.

"The Consequences of Nationalism: A Scholarly Exchange" (with Matthias vom Hau, Marc Helbling, Andreas Wimmer, Daphne Halikiopoulou) in Nations and Nationalism, 2023.

"Political Parties in India" (with Indrajit Roy) in Routledge Handbook of Political Parties, 2023.

“Why Every Nation Needs (A Thick and Inclusive) Nationalism.” In Koopmans and Orgaad, ed., Majorities, Minorities and the Future of Nationhood. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

“Nations Under Gods or Gods under Nations: The Role of Islam in Asia.” Pauline Jones and Melani Cammett, eds. Oxford Handbook of Muslim Societies. 2022.

“COVID-19 and Authoritarianism: Two Strategies of Engaging Fear.” (with Wolff, J., Elitzer, D., Petherick, A., and Tyner, K.) 2022. Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 13(02), pp.78-98.

Azlan, Choo, Cuadra, Deak, Godlewski, Lam, Murphy, Oparadike, Sivadas, Mangla, Tudor, 2022. "Addressing Violence Against Women in Madhya Pradesh, India: The Urgent Action and Just Relief Program." REACH Alliance Case Study.

Mylonas and Tudor, 2021. "Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know." Annual Review of Political Science.

Tudor and Slater, 2020. "Nationalism, Authoritarianism, and Democracy: Historical Lessons from South and Southeast Asia." Perspectives on Politics.

Why Religious Tolerance Won in Indonesia But Lost in India.” (with Dan Slater) Foreign Affairs, July 3, 2019.

Tudor and Ziegfeld, 2019. "Social Cleavages, Party Organization, and the End of Single-Party Dominance: Insights from India." Comparative Politics.

"Can Nationalism Be a Resource for Democracy?", in The Long Now, April 16, 2019.

"Why nativism rather than nationalism represents Southeast Asia’s democratic danger", in Asia Dialogue, March 18, 2019.

How Nationalism Can Actually Help Democracy.” The Washington Post, April 25, 2018.

“India’s Nationalism in Historical Perspective: The Democratic Dangers of Ascendant Nativism.” Indian Politics & Policy Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2018

“The Content of Democracy: Nationalist Parties and Inclusive Ideologies in India and Indonesia” (with Dan Slater) in Parties, Movements and Democracy in the Developing World, Nancy Bermeo and Deborah Yashar, eds. Cambridge University Press Studies in Contentious Politics. 2017

“Can a Coup in Zimbabwe Really Usher in Democracy?” The New Statesman, November 24, 2017.

Nationalism Can Be a Force for Good As Well as Evil.” The Scotsman, October 31, 2017

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