Mohammad Qadam Shah

Mohammad Qadam Shah was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh before joining SPU’s School of Business, Government, and Economics in the fall of 2020. He received his Ph.D. (with distinction) from the University of Washington where he concentrated on International Development and Public Policy Management. He completed his LLM in Asian and Comparative Law at the University of Washington. Before pursuing his graduate studies in the U.S., Qadam Shah lived in Afghanistan where he earned his BA in legal studies.

Qadam Shah’s research and publications focus on the political economy of state building, development management, anti-corruption reforms, as well as policy analysis and program evaluation in states affected by conflict. He is currently investigating the political economy of budget allocation, the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts, and public finance reforms in Afghanistan. He is also working on a book (in collaboration with Jennifer Murtazashvili) on the consequences of centralized, Soviet-influenced governance institutions on conflict and state building in Afghanistan as well as Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Iraq.

Qadam Shah has previously served as Assistant Professor at the School of Law and Political Sciences at Balkh University, Afghanistan. He has taught courses on Comparative Constitutional Law, Local Governance, and Development and Modernization. He has extensive experience and knowledge of the Afghan legal and political system and has worked with a host of international aid organizations.