Rate My Professor Matthew Nelson

Matthew J. Nelson is Professor of Politics and Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London. He holds a BA from Bowdoin College and a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, completed in 2002. His research examines the comparative and international politics of South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and India, with particular attention to religion and politics, law and politics, comparative political thought, non-elite politics, comparative law and constitutionalism, Islamic law and education, politics and religion, and democracy. Nelson welcomes PhD applications in these fields.

Prior to joining SOAS in 2006, he taught at the University of California Santa Cruz, Bates College, and Yale University, and served as Deputy Team Leader (Research) for an Asian Development Bank-funded rule-of-law reform project with The Asia Foundation. He has held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC), Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung (Germany), and University of Melbourne (Australia). At SOAS, Nelson belongs to the South Asia Institute and co-founded the Centre for Comparative Political Thought and Centre for Conflict, Rights, and Justice. He has been an elected board member of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Nelson has consulted for the Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Asian Research, The Asia Foundation, Asian Development Bank, and British Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. His key book is In the Shadow of Shari‘ah: Islam, Islamic Law, and Democracy in Pakistan (Columbia University Press, 2011). Select publications include 'When Crackdowns and Cooptation Fail: What Constrains Religious Opposition Forces in Bangladesh?' with Mubashar Hasan (Melbourne Asia Review, 2022), 'Taliban Law: Theory and Practice' (Melbourne Asia Review, 2021), 'Indian Basic Structure Jurisprudence in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan' (Asian Journal of Comparative Law, 2018), and 'Dealing with Difference: Religious Education and the Challenge of Democracy in Pakistan' (Modern Asian Studies, 2009).