Zahid Mumtaz is a Lecturer in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Australian National University.

His research sits at the intersection of social policy, public administration, and development studies, with a growing focus on applying classical and quantum machine learning techniques to public policy analysis. Zahid is the author of Informal Social Protection and Poverty (Springer Nature, 2022) and Colonization and Social Policy: A Bureaucratic Regime Approach to Analysing Social Policy in South Asia from the Colonial to the Post-Colonial Era (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming). He is also first author of The Interplay of Formal and Informal Social Protection in the Global South (University of Bristol Press, forthcoming).

His scholarship has been widely published in leading international journals, including Social Policy and Administration, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Social Policy, Critical Social Policy, International Journal of Social Welfare, The Journal of Asian Studies, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Zahid is recognised as a mixed-methods researcher whose contributions span theory, methodology, and applied analysis. He has developed the theory of community welfare regimes, provided multidimensional conceptualization of informal social protection and the concept of bureaucratic regimes, created a novel methodology for capturing hybridization of welfare regimes, and advanced innovative uses of classical and quantum machine learning for policy analysis.

Prior to academia, Zahid served in the civil service of Pakistan, holding senior administrative roles and working with international organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, GIZ, and USAID. This blend of professional and scholarly experience informs his research on welfare regimes, bureaucratic institutions, and policy capacity in the Global South.

Areas of Expertise

Welfare regimes; Hybrid welfare systems; Suffering and harm; Formal and informal social protection; Community welfare regimes; Bureaucratic regimes; Colonization and post-colonial legacies; Classical and quantum machine learning; Policy analysis.

Selected Publications

Books

• Mumtaz, Z. (forthcoming). Colonization and Social Policy: A Bureaucratic Regime Approach to Analysing Social Policy in South Asia from the Colonial to the Post-Colonial Era. Palgrave Macmillan.
  Develops the concept of bureaucratic regimes to explain welfare trajectories in South Asia.
• Mumtaz, Z. (2022). Informal Social Protection and Poverty. Springer Nature.
  Provides a conceptual and empirical framework for understanding informal social protection in developing societies.
• Mumtaz, Z., et al. (under contract). The Interplay of Formal and Informal Social Protection in the Global South. University of Bristol Press. (Forthcoming, June 2026).
  Edited volume examining the complex interplay between state-led and community-based welfare systems across diverse contexts.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles (Recent & Forthcoming)

• Mumtaz, Z., & Jamali, G. (forthcoming). Behind the “Game Changer” Spectacle: The Consequences of CPEC Gwadar Port Development on Gwadar’s Fishermen and Fishing Industry. The Journal of Asian Studies.
• Seina, C., & Mumtaz, Z. (forthcoming). A Hybrid Classification Approach for Exploring Iraq’s Welfare Regime. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy.
• Dave, K., Innan, N., Hassan, B., Behera, B., Mumtaz, Z., Al-Kuwari, S., & Farouk, A. (2025). SentiQNF: A Novel Approach to Sentiment Analysis Using Quantum Algorithms and Neuro-Fuzzy Systems. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems.
• Mumtaz, Z., & Kühner, S. (2025). Towards a Theorization of the Global Community Welfare Regime: Depicting Four Ideal Types of the Community’s Role in Welfare Provision. Journal of European Social Policy.
• Mumtaz, Z., & Nakray, K. (2025). Towards a Theorization of Ideal Type Bureaucratic Regimes: A Comparative Perspective from Pakistan and India. Administrative Theory and Praxis.
• Mumtaz, Z., & Roelen, K. (2024). Winners and Losers: Class Dynamics and Social Protection in Pakistan. International Journal of Social Welfare.
• Mumtaz, Z., & Sumarto, M. (2024). Suffering and Harm in Insecurity Welfare Regimes: Conflict and the Nexus of Formal and Informal Welfare in Pakistan. Critical Social Policy.
• Mumtaz, Z., Oko, C., & Zitha, M. (2024). A Case for the Inclusion of Informal Social Protection in Social Policy Theory and Practice: Lessons from Nigeria and Pakistan. Journal of Asian and African Studies.
• Mumtaz, Z., Roumpakis, A., & Sumarto, M. (2023). Overcoming Hybridisation in Global Welfare Regime Classifications: Lessons from a Single Case Study. Journal of Social Policy.
• Mumtaz, Z. (2023). Conceptualising the Relationship Between Formal and Informal Social Protection. Social Policy and Society.
• Mumtaz, Z. (2022). Informal Social Protection: A Conceptual Synthesis. Social Policy and Administration.
• Zhen, L., Wang, Y., Yu, K., Lu, G., Mumtaz, Z., & Wei, W. (2022). Reliable Uplink Synchronization Maintenance for Satellite Ground Integrated Vehicular Networks. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.