Leitner Seminar Series: Saad Gulzar

Saad Gulzar’s research asks under what conditions can representative government – one that provides equality of voice and influence – improve people’s lives? His work brings evidence from a number of South Asian contexts – Pakistan, India, and Nepal, home to a quarter of the world’s population – to show that those not considered traditionally elite are in fact equally, if not more, capable of competent governance. I demonstrate that incorporating non-elite – and therefore, more representative – voices in government robustly improves policy.
He works closely with politicians, political parties, bureaucrats, and government agencies, and strives to make these collaborations meaningful for research and policy. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of Development Economics, and Journal of the European Economic Association. Prior to joining Princeton, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Politics at New York University in 2017.