Mahvish Shami is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics. She has been a visiting research fellow at the School of Advance International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University.
Her research interests focus on the impact of unequal power relations – particularly clientelism – on the welfare of the poor. Dr. Shami’s current research focuses on poor citizens’ access to justice. She explores the barriers they face when accessing formal dispute resolution bodies. While the current literature looks at the institutional underpinnings of these restrictions, I argue that a major hurdle in developing countries comes in the form of social barriers, stemming from the presence of clientelist networks.
After completing her Ph.D. from the LSE, Dr. Shami did a Post-Doctoral fellowship at the Institute of Food and Resource Economics, Copenhagen University, and subsequently was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the LSE.
