Kaarish Maniar is a Ph.D. Student in Political Science at Columbia University, where he specializes in Political Theory. His interests include the history of political and economic thought, jurisprudence and legal history, ethical theory, and the history of democracy.
Mr. Maniar studies the early modern intellectual history of monopoly power—particularly how the concept of monopoly transformed and evolved with the emergence of modern markets and democratic thought. His current work examines criticisms of guilds, patents, joint-stock corporations, and other monopoly powers in seventeenth century England, especially in the thought of Sir Edward Coke and the Levellers. Mr. Maniar’s research seeks to recover distinctly moral-political and rights-based antimonopoly logics that might inform and reframe contemporary questions in antitrust law.
Prior to enrolling at Columbia, Mr. Maniar served as Paralegal Specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where he analyzed software and digital platform merger filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and worked on the United States v. Google litigation. He completed an A.B. in Government at Georgetown University, where his undergraduate thesis, “Monopoly as Private Government,” was awarded honors with distinction and the department prize for best thesis in political theory.
