'Rekha Diwakar joined University of Sussex in May 2013 Lecturer in Politics. Before joining Sussex, she was a Lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she taught modules in politics, public policy and research methods. Her research interests include Indian politics and public policy, comparative politics, especially electoral competition and voting behaviour, size of party systems, civil service reforms in developing countries, with a special focus on India, and research methods in political science. Her current research projects include studying ‘Effective Spaces of Party Competition’ in a comparative perspective and evaluating alternative electoral systems in India.

Her PhD thesis was an investigation into the determinants of the size of the Indian party system. Her research on India has been published in well- known international journals and she has presented papers at leading academic conferences and workshops. She has recently published on 2014 Indian national elections in 'Electoral Studies', a leading political science international journal. At Sussex, she has developed and teaches the undergraduate year 3 module, 'Political Change: India' and year 2 module, 'Politics of Governance: India'.  She has also designed and will be teaching the PG module ‘Politics and Governance in India’, starting in 2015-16, for the MA International Politics programme.'