Rachel Brule

Boston University

I am an Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. My expertise is in comparative politics with a substantive focus on gender, political economy, and institutions. I study how changes in political institutions alter the distribution of rights, resources, and social value to understand the paths to challenging existing social hierarchies and relations. My questions are global in scope, and informed by extensive field work based in South Asia. My research combines experimental methods with innovative theory building to identify the causal impact of changes in formal and informal institutions on women and members of other socially-excluded groups’ ability to engage the state, and agency to advance individual and collective agendas.
My book, Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India, awarded APSA’s 2021 Luebbert Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Politics, is published with Cambridge University Press.

Areas of Expertise

• Economic Inequality
• Policy
• Political Science
• Social Inequality or Stratification
• Social Policy
• Gender

Methodology

• Archival Methods
• Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR)
• Ethnographic Methods
• Experimental
• Focus Groups
• Interviews
• Mixed Methods
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Randomized Control Trials (RCTs)
• Secondary Data Analysis
• Social Network Analysis
• Survey Methods and Questionnaires