Read more about our Contributors

Dr Garima Sarkar is a political scientist specializing in gender and politics, party systems, and the formal and informal dynamics of candidate selection in South and Southeast Asia. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from McMaster University, where her dissertation, Barriers to Women in Politics: Candidate Selection and Informal Party Politics in India, examined how party institutions and informal practices shape women’s access to political candidacy. She is currently developing this research into a book with Oxford University Press South Asia series. Her research interests include gender and party politics, political recruitment, informal institutions, electoral systems, comparative public policy, ethnic politics, and representational politics. She has contributed to major research initiatives, including the SSHRC-funded Ethnic Quota Project, studies on democratic backsliding in Asia, and comparative research on gender quotas in South and Southeast Asia. Currently, she teaches at O.P. Jindal Global University, where she offers courses on Comparative Democratization, Globalization and World Order, Comparative Party Systems, and Elections and Identity: Comparative Perspectives. In addition, she serves as the Co-Director of the Centre for Analytical Research and Engagement (CARE), a research Centre housed at her current school, where she works as a Principal PI on multiple projects focused on India’s party politics and electoral campaigns. With over 12 years of teaching and research experience in India and Canada, her work bridges empirical research, policy analysis, and academic teaching, with a focus on understanding how institutions and political behaviour shape representation and how reforms can foster more inclusive political systems.

Dr Soham Das is an Assistant Professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University, India. He holds a PhD and an MA in Political Science from The University of Texas (Dallas), USA. His research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, political violence, electoral behaviour, and peace-conflict studies. His current research explores the causal and comparative dynamics of conservative electoral victories and political violence in the United States, Canada, and India, while also examining identity politics in Indian elections, subnational positive peace, majority security dilemmas, and ethno-civil violence in South Asia. For further inquiries, feel free to reach out to him at sdas2@jgu.edu.in.

Shannon Bow O’Brien is an Associate Professor of Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD from the University of Florida and her Master's and Bachelor’s from the University of Louisville. She specialises in American politics with an emphasis on the presidency. She is the author of 'Why Presidential Speech Locations Matter: Analyzing Speechmaking from Truman to Obama,' 'Donald Trump and the Kayfabe Presidency: Professional Wrestling Rhetoric in the White House,' and 'Eugenics in American Political Life: How the Politics of Superiority Still Shape Us Today.'

Enzo Nicolás Cardone is an Argentine historian and postgraduate student currently based in Queensland, Australia. He holds a diploma in International Relations and teaches history with a focus on geopolitics and strategic affairs.

Dr Seth Appiah-Mensah is a veteran peacekeeper and an expert on pan-African security partnerships. As a former military officer in the Ghana Armed Forces, he served with ECOWAS in Liberia, African Union in Sudan (Darfur) and the United Nations in Sierra Leone. He is a former Military Advisor for the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and worked with the United Nations for close to two decades as a civilian. He has a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Western Australia and has published several articles.

Carol Dyck is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Law at Western University in Canada. Her research focuses on marine and international environmental law, particularly on deep seabed mining and Arctic issues. 

Dr Adriano Tedde is a lecturer in Strategic and American Studies at the Centre for Future Defence and National Security at Deakin University.

Dr Amit Kumar Singh is a researcher in International Relations with core specialisation in India’s foreign policy, Indo-Pacific studies, maritime security and geopolitics.

Prakash Mirchandani is a Council Member of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (Victoria) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Advocata Institute, an independent Public Policy Think Tank in Sri Lanka. He is also the founder of Achilles Consulting; a trade and marketing advisory focused on emerging South Asian economies.

Dongkeun Lee is a Policy Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network and has recently submitted his PhD thesis at the Australian National University. His primary research focus is maritime security in the Indo-Pacific, with broader interests in international security of the region. He is also currently serving as a Non-Resident James A. Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum.