Shirin Rai is Professor in the department of Politics and International Studies and was seconded to CSGR for the year 1997-1998. During that year she finished a manuscript on Gender and the Political Economy of Development which has now been published under that title (2002, Polity Press). Her research interests are in the area of feminist politics, democratisation, and development studies. She has written extensively on issues of gender, governance and democratisation. Her latest co-edited book, Rethinking Empowerment : Gender and Development in a global/local world, 2002, Routledge, has been published in the Routledge/Warwick Studies in Globalisation series. She has also edited International Perspectives on Gender and Democratisation, Macmillan, 2000, and Global Social Movements, Athlone Press, 2000. She is currently working on Gender and the International Political Economy – a project arising in part from the successful ESRC Seminar series (2002) and also from the CSGR sponsored workshop on the topic (2004).

Shirin Rai has worked as a consultant with the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, is the founder member of the South Asian Regional Network on Gender, Law and Governance and is on the editorial boards of Democratization and the International Feminist Journal of Politics.