Benjamin Bradlow is a PhD candidate in sociology at Brown University. His dissertation research compares the governance of urban public goods — housing, sanitation, and collective transportation — in São Paulo and Johannesburg after transitions to democracy. Additional work analyzes the relationship between contentious mobilization and democratic deepening, the economic and social outcomes of place-based public housing subsidies, and the authoritarian style in democratic politics.

His dissertation has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program and the Brazilian Studies Association. As part of his field work, he has been a visiting researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of São Paulo and the Public Affairs Research Institute at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. His research has been published or is forthcoming in Social Forces, Environment & Urbanization, and International Development Planning Review.

He holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT and a BA in history from Swarthmore College.