Prithviraj Datta
              Assistant Professor of Political Theory
              Government Department
              Franklin & Marshall College
​              pdatta@fandm.edu

---

I am Assistant Professor of Political Theory at Franklin & Marshall College. My research interests lie primarily at the intersection of contemporary political theory and American politics, with specific interests in democratic theory, political inequality, and neo-republican political thought. I hold a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. I also hold law degrees from the University of Oxford and the National Law School of India University. I have previously held postdoctoral positions at F&M, the Stanford University Center for Ethics, and the Brown University Political Theory Project.

My research focuses on two themes. In the first instance, I am concerned with the problem of money in politics, and with the great influence that the wealthy exert over political decision-making in the United States. Pursuant to this theme, I am currently working on a book manuscript entitled Dialing for Dollars, Dialing for Domination which relies on insights from democratic theory and neo-republican political theory to offer a novel normative critique of the American campaign finance system.

I am also concerned, in my research, with the extent to which the right to free speech ought to be protected against governmental regulation in liberal democratic societies. Recent work in this theme includes projects which seek to explain why John Stuart Mill favored near-absolute protection for the freedom of speech, identify the right to advocacy as being the central component of the protection that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution offers for the freedom of expression, and query whether campaign spending ought to be protected as speech by courts under the First Amendment.

I have taught courses on global justice, democratic theory, the history of political thought, and constitutional law and theory at F&M, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard. In Fall 2023, I will be teaching two sections of Global Justice.