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Duke's Shikhar Singh honored for research on India's local governance
Shikhar Singh's award-winning study examines governance knowledge among elected officials in India's small towns.
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Ankita Baidya - Fri, 17, Jul 2026
- 05:20 EDT
- 32
Shikhar Singh was honored for research on procedural knowledge in India's local governing councils. / X/@APSAtweets
Indian-origin political scientist Shikhar Singh, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duke University, has been named a co-recipient of the American Political Science Association's (APSA) 2026 Heinz I. Eulau Award for research examining how well elected representatives in India's small-town councils understand the procedures required to govern effectively.
According to a report published by PoliticalScienceNow on July 16, Singh received the award alongside Adam Auerbach of Yale University and Tariq Thachil of the University of Pennsylvania. The annual award recognizes the best article published in the American Political Science Review, APSA's flagship academic journal.
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The trio was recognized for their paper, "Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils."
According to the award citation published by PoliticalScienceNow, the study explores whether elected local officials possess the procedural knowledge necessary to carry out their governing responsibilities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork across India, the researchers designed an original survey and interviewed politicians serving in small-town municipal councils.
The study found that many elected representatives lack the procedural knowledge required to govern effectively, according to the citation. The committee noted that the research highlights an often-overlooked "knowledge deficit" among politicians and argues that structured training is essential for improving governance, particularly in local bodies where formal preparation for elected office is limited.
The award committee also praised the paper's methodological rigor and broader relevance, noting that its findings extend beyond India and offer insights into challenges faced by local governments in other countries.
According to APSA's published biography, Singh's research focuses on political behavior and the political economy of development, with a particular emphasis on South Asia. His current book project examines technological changes in India's welfare state and explores how digital public infrastructure influences political behavior and voting patterns.
His broader research agenda also investigates why decentralization to urban local governments often fails to improve governance and accountability, as well as why citizens do not consistently hold elected officials responsible for environmental challenges such as air pollution.
Singh earned his doctorate in Political Science from Yale University. He previously completed a bachelor's degree in History and Politics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he was an Inlaks Scholar, and a bachelor's degree in History from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi.
Co-author Tariq Thachil, whose scholarship also focuses extensively on India, has received several APSA honors in recent years, including the 2025 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Prize, the 2025 Frankel Prize, the 2024 Sartori Book Prize and the 2024 APSA Best Book Prize for Migrants and Machine Politics, co-authored with Auerbach, according to his APSA biography.
Auerbach, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, is also the author of Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.
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