Anirvan Chowdhury

Anirvan Chowdhury is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Aung San Suu Kyi Endowed Chair in Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville. His research focuses on the political economy of development, with a regional emphasis on South Asia, examining intersections between religion, gender, party politics, and democratization. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley (2023) and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

His current book project explores how religiously conservative parties mobilize women in India, particularly through the BJP’s use of the ‘seva’ (service) framework. This work has received multiple accolades, including best dissertation awards from four APSA sections in 2024. His research has been supported by grants from the APSA-NSF, the Global Religion Research Initiative, and J-PAL Governance Initiative.

Chowdhury’s work bridges qualitative and quantitative methods, including field experiments, computational text analysis, and ethnographic research. His findings highlight how norm-compliant mobilization strategies enable conservative parties to engage women without destabilizing patriarchal norms, with implications for democratic resilience globally.

Teaching experience includes graduate-level math camps at UC Berkeley and Georgetown University, as well as undergraduate courses in quantitative methods.