Bardia Rahmani

Welcome! 

I am an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

My research focuses on the role of media in autocracies and fragile democracies. One strand of my work investigates propaganda, censorship, and media control in authoritarian regimes. The other evaluates media campaigns to promote civic knowledge and political participation in Sub-Saharan Africa. I study these topics using a combination of field experiments, natural experiments, and qualitative fieldwork. My research has been published in The Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Behavioral Public Policy, and The Journal of Democracy.

I have received support from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the U.S. Department of State’s Title VIII Program, and Columbia University's Libraries. I was awarded the William T.R. Fox Fellowship in Political Science (2021) and the Andreas C. Dracopoulos Family Fellowship (2022). 

I received a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an M.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. Prior to academia, I worked as an investigative journalist in Tajikistan and Timor-Leste.