Mohammad Qadam Shah
Assistant Professor of International Sustainable Development
Email: qshah@spu.edu
Phone: 206-281-2651
Office: McKenna Hall 214
Education: BA, Balkh University (Afghanistan), 2012; LLM, University of Washington, 2014; PhD, University of Washington, 2019. At SPU since 2020.
Dr. 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 US, Qadam Shah lived in Afghanistan where he earned his BA in legal studies.
Dr. 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.
Dr. 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.
Selected Publications
“Defund Afghanistan” (with Jennifer Murtazashvili) The Bridge, July 2020.
“Political Reform Urgently Needed in Afghanistan: Without Reform of its Centralized Political System, Afghanistan Will Remain Mired in Factionalism and Civil Conflict.” (With Jennifer Murtazashvili) The Diplomat, February 2020.
“The Durability of Constitutional Solutions to Religious Conflicts in Divided Societies: Lessons from the Constitutional History of Afghanistan.” (with Shamshad Pasarlay), Chicago-Kent J. International Comparative Law 18: 1-50, 2018.
“Reforming the Afghan Electoral System: The Current Debate and its Implications for the Plans to Amend the Afghan Constitutions.” International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog, (with Clark Lombardi and Shamshad Pasarlay), 2015.