On this week’s episode of the Thinking Global Podcast, Rumela Sen chats with Dr. Tusharika Deka (@Tusharika24) to discuss civil conflicts, rebellions and the effect of technological development in South Asia. Together, Dr. Sen and Dr. Deka explore Maoist rebellion and governance, the challenges of fieldwork, the politics of Nepal, digital transnational repression, the intersection of democracy and technology, and much more.
Dr. Rumela Sen (@rsen02) is a political scientist at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she is also the Faculty Director of the flagship Masters in International Affairs program. Her research focuses on civil conflict, rebel governance, and the effect of emerging technologies on democracy in South Asia. She is the author of the book Farewell to Arms: How Rebels Retire Without Getting Killed published by Oxford University Press (2021). She has also published extensively in academic and policy outlets. She is currently working on her second book on the legacy of the Maoist uprising and their eventual electoral turn in Nepal. In addition, she has increasingly turned her attention to the impact of AI on security and democracy in the Global South, and is currently working on a funded project on the impact of deepfakes on public trust in democracy in India. She is deeply committed to bridging scholarship, practice, and community, and actively collaborates with policymakers, journalists and civil society leaders to advance conversations on post-conflict peacebuilding, democratic backsliding and public demands for accountability and transparency in government.
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