I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Ashoka University, India. From 2025-26, I was an India-US Security Studies Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). I received my PhD in Political Science from Yale University in 2022 and hold a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
My research examines social identity and counterinsurgency strategy with a regional focus on South Asia and the British Empire. My first book project investigates why states draw security forces from the same social bases as insurgent groups (“coethnics”) in some conflicts but rely on rival ethnic outgroups in others. In other projects, I focus on post-conflict legacies and public opinion in polarized settings. I answer these questions using a variety of empirical methods, including survey research, qualitative fieldwork, archival research, and cross-national quantitative analysis. My work is published in the American Journal of Political Science, Civil Wars, Oxford Intersections, Social Text, and the Routledge Handbooks Series.
At Ashoka, I teach thematic courses on gender in politics and political violence, post-conflict dynamics, and research design with a focus on qualitative methods.
Dipin Kaur 