Shirin M. Rai (born 1 December 1960), is a political scientist, known for her research on the intersections between globalisation, post-colonial governance, processes of democratisation and gender regimes. She is the Director of the Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament Programme, a four-year interdisciplinary project funded by the Leverhulme Trust that studies the performances of ritual, ceremony, symbolism and affect in the British, Indian and South African parliaments.