Welcome! My name is Saloni Bhogale, and I am pursuing a PhD in Political Science and have received an M.S. in Statistics (Applied Statistics) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I am a scholar of comparative politics, studying the political economy of development in the Global South.
My three-paper dissertation explores how political considerations shape access to justice, court efficiency and incentives in legislatures.
In my job market paper, titled Local Institutions and Legal Empowerment: Evidence from Village Councils, I argue that elected members of a village council play a key role in helping their constituents overcome barriers to accessing justice. While prior literature discusses the role of village-level authorities in informal dispute resolution, my research reveals a new dimension–that elected council members help their constituents access the formal legal system as a form of constituency service, which is essential to strengthening the rule of law, preventing conflict, and supporting economic development.
This research has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation's Law and Science Dissertation Grant, and the Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowship and the Institute for Regional and International Studies Grant at the University of Wisconsin--Madison.
In other projects, I study natural experiments in legislatures, court efficiency, rural politics in the US and political methodology. I am affiliated with UW-Madison's Center for High Throughput Computing and frequently leverage scientific computing to improve performance of tasks in the research pipeline.
To get in touch with me, please email bhogale@wisc.edu