Dr Romitesh Kant is a Research Fellow at the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet). His research examines gender, political institutions, democracy and power in the Pacific, with a particular focus on Fiji. His work draws together political masculinities, feminist institutionalism, intersectionality and decolonial approaches to politics and governance. Romitesh completed his PhD in Political Science and International Relations at The Australian National University. His thesis, Politics and Its Mal[e] Contents: Masculine Architectures of Power in Fiji’s Political Parties, examined how masculinities are produced, performed, contested and maintained within political parties. Drawing on extensive political ethnography, interviews, participant observation and digital research, it explored how masculine norms and practices shape political leadership, authority, institutional cultures and democratic participation in Fiji. His broader research interests include Pacific politics, gender and political leadership, political parties and elections, democratic governance, constitutional politics, coups and militarism, climate justice, and Pacific regionalism and geopolitics. He is particularly interested in how formal and informal institutions legitimise particular forms of leadership and reproduce inequalities across gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality and generation. Romitesh has published research on political masculinities and elections in Fiji, gender mainstreaming and male allyship, constitutional politics, Pacific regionalism and geopolitics. His work has appeared in Democratization, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, The Round Table and the Journal of Pacific History. He also contributes to policy and public debates on constitutional reform, democracy, gender equality, climate justice and regional security in the Pacific. Alongside his academic research, Romitesh has extensive experience working with civil society organisations, feminist movements, policymakers and political actors in Fiji and across the Pacific. His research is grounded in Pacific political realities and attentive to questions of power, accountability and decolonial knowledge production.