Atul Kohli

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Full) at Princeton University

The Center of International Studies at Princeton University organized a symposium during 1993-94 on the role of theory in comparative politics. Presented here is an edited and condensed version of the proceedings. In light of recent challenges posed by both rational choice and postmodern cultural approaches, the symposium helped elucidate the merit...

While many scholars have sought to analyze South Korea's economic success, not enough attention has been paid to the impact of Japanese colonialism. Japanese colonial influence on Korea in 1905–1945, while brutal and humiliating, was also decisive in shaping a political economy that later evolved into the high-growth South Korean path to developmen...

Attempts at “liberalizing” India's import-substitution model of development have had a mixed record. Some success in changing the policy regime highlights the role of a new technocratic leadership that has received support from both Indian business groups and from external aid agencies. Conversely, “popular sectors” within India—including the rank...

This conclusion follows the three main concerns of the volume: the power of business in India, business influence across issue areas, and cross-state variations. The chapters that address these respective concerns and their main contributions were already summarized in the introduction to this volume. This conclusion draws out some key themes that...

Over the last few decades, politics in India has moved steadily in a pro-business direction. This shift has important implications for both government and citizens. In Business and Politics in India, leading scholars of Indian politics have gathered to offer an analytical synthesis of this vast topic. Collectively, they cover the many strategies th...

Overview Description Table of Contents Author InformationCoverBusiness and Politics in IndiaEdited by Christophe Jaffrelot, Edited by Atul Kohli, and Edited by Kanta MuraliModern South AsiaDescriptionOver the last few decades, politics in India has moved steadily in a pro-business direction. This shift has important implications for both government...

What should states in the developing world do and how should they do it? How have states in the developing world addressed the challenges of promoting development, order, and inclusion? States in the developing world are supposed to build economies, control violence, and include the population. How they do so depends on historical origins and conte...

What should states in the developing world do and how should they do it? How have states in the developing world addressed the challenges of promoting development, order, and inclusion? States in the developing world are supposed to build economies, control violence, and include the population. How they do so depends on historical origins and conte...

What should states in the developing world do and how should they do it? How have states in the developing world addressed the challenges of promoting development, order, and inclusion? States in the developing world are supposed to build economies, control violence, and include the population. How they do so depends on historical origins and conte...

India’s growing economic and socio-political importance on the global stage has triggered an increased interest in the country. This Handbook is a reference guide, which surveys the current state of Indian politics and provides a basic understanding of the ways in which the world’s largest democracy functions. The Handbook is structured around fou...

When compared to Latin America, Asian economies since 1980 have grown faster and have done so with relatively modest inequalities. Why? A comparison of Asia and Latin America underlines the superiority of the nationalist capitalist model of development, which has often been pursued more explicitly in Asia, over that of a dependent capitalist model,...

India has one of the fastest growing economies on earth. Over the past three decades, socialism has been replaced by pro-business policies as the way forward. And yet, in this 'new' India, grinding poverty is still a feature of everyday life. Some 450 million people subsist on less than $1.25 per day and nearly half of India's children are malnouri...

States in the developing world play an essential role in moulding patterns of development. The Indian state is no exception. Over time, the state in India has shifted from a reluctant pro-capitalist state with a socialist ideology to an enthusiastic pro-capitalist state with some commitment to inclusive growth. This shift has significant implicatio...

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that ethnic diversity negatively influences public goods provision through a longitudinal study of the Indian state of Kerala, which has attained exceptional levels of social development despite high fragmentation along religious and caste lines. This paper argues that it is not objective diversity but...

This volume brings together Atul Kohli's essays published over the last twenty-five years. They are organized in three sections, each section representing a distinct theme-political change; political economy; and politics and development in select states. The introductory essay provides an 'umbrella' for these essays, giving the volume a significan...

When compared to Latin America, Asian economies since 1980 have grown faster and have done so with relatively modest inequalities. Why? A comparison of Asia and Latin America underlines the superiority of the nationalist capitalist model of development, which has often been pursued more explicitly in Asia, over that of a dependent capitalist model,...

Today the Washington Consensus on development lies in tatters. The recent history of the developing world has been unkind to the core claim that a nation that opens its economy and keeps government's role to a minimum invariably experiences rapid economic growth. The evidence against this claim is strong: the developing world as a whole grew faster...

For the past 25years, India’s economy has grown at an average rate of nearly 6% annually. The widely embraced argument that this growth acceleration results from the Indian state’s adoption of a pro-market strategy is inadequate for two reasons: the higher growth rate began a full decade before the liberalizing 2reforms in 1991; and post-1991 indus...

For the last quarter of a century India's economy has grown at an average rate of nearly 6 per cent per annum. The widely embraced argument that this growth pick up is a result of the Indian state's adoption of a pro-market strategy is inadequate for three reasons: the growth pick up in India began a full decade prior to the liberalising reforms in...

India's economic growth has not accelerated dramatically. What aggregate change is noticeable predates the liberalising reforms by a whole decade and industrial growth in the post-reform period did not pick up. Moreover, the problems posed by India's current pro-business model of development include disquieting implications for the quality of India...

Why are some democratic governments more successful than others? What impact do various political institutions have on the quality of governance? This paper develops and tests a new theory of democratic governance. This theory, which we label centripetalism, stands in contrast to the dominant paradigm of decentralism. The centripetal theory of gove...

Why have some developing countries industrialized and become more prosperous rapidly while others have not? Focusing on South Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria, this study compares the characteristics of fairly functioning states and explains why states in some parts of the developing world are more effective. It emphasizes the role of colonialism...

Why have some developing country states been more successful at facilitating industrialization than others? An answer to this question is developed by focusing both on patterns of state construction and intervention aimed at promoting industrialization. Four countries are analyzed in detail - South Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria - over the twent...

PerspectivesonPolitics is a general journal of political science that seeks to provide political insight on important problems, as it emerges from rigorous, broad-based research and integrative thought. The editors anticipate authors and readers primarily comprising political scientists, but also including journalists, policy analysts, public offic...

Journal of Democracy 9.3 (1998) 7-20 Indians appear to love the practice of democracy so much that they are in danger of overdoing it. In February and March of 1998, the world's largest democracy held its twelfth general election since gaining its independence a half-century ago. The voting was largely fair and peaceful. New, right-of-center rulers...

Numerous ethnic movements have over the years confronted the central state within India's multicultural democracy. India thus provides laboratory-like conditions for the study of these movements. In this paper I analyze three such ethnic movements—those of Tamils in Tamilnadu during the 1950s and the 1960s, of Sikhs in the Punjab during the 1980s,...

This collection of essays on Third World politics provides, through a variety of themes and approaches, an examination of "state theory' as it has been practiced in the past, and how it must be refined for the future. The contributors go beyond the previously articulated "bringing the state back in' model to offer their own "state-in-society' appro...

It is argued that tendencies toward centralization and powerlessness are generated by the near absence of systematic authority links between the state's apex and the vast social periphery. In years past, especially during the 1950s, the Congress forged patronage links with regional and local influentials, thus creating a chain of authority that str...

Atul Kohli is professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of The State and Poverty in India: The Politics of Reform (1987), and Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (1990). The present article draws on both these works and his essay, "From Majority to Minority Rule." Making...

Long considered one of the great successes of the developing world, India has more recently experienced growing challenges to political order and stability. Institutional mechanisms for the resolution of conflict have broken down, the civil and police services have become highly politicized, and the state bureaucracy appears incapable of implementi...

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. Mor...

This analysis of the role of government in eradicating India's rural poverty raises a whole series of crucial contemporary issues relating to the state, its degree of autonomy in the developing world and the problems of effecting genuine redistributive reform. The particular importance of the book is that it focuses attention on the nature of rulin...

The purpose of this article is to assess the relative power of developmental, neo-Marxist, and statist explanations of inequalities in the Third World. This assessment is accomplished through the analysis of cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal data as well as several brief case studies. The cross-sectional analyses tend to suggest that, ove...

This article examines three themes concerning the rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal. These themes are the compromising by CPM, the Marxist Party, of the elements of revolutionary communism in order to rule in a democratic- capitalist setting, CPM's capacity as an agent of redistributive reforms, and the political constra...

A new body of literature, including India's Political Economy by Francine Frankel, argues that the organization of the rural poor can facilitate a “democratic socialist” mode of development in India. The author dissents from this left-liberal world view. The organization of the lower classes has seldom led to a significant redistribution of economi...

This course will provide a graduate level introduction to the comparative study of development. A central question will help organize the course: why have some parts of the developing world succeeded at "development," while others have not? Whereas East Asia has often been viewed as economically successful, sub-Saharan Africa has just as often been...

Empires and imperialism are old scholarly subjects of enduring relevance. After years of oblivion, the terms have reentered America's mainstream political discourse. A number of scholars and public intellectuals have in recent publications described US foreign policies, especially towards the developing world, as constituting a type of imperialism....

This course will provide a graduate level introduction to the comparative study of development. A central question will help organize the course: why have some parts of the developing world succeeded at "development," while others have not? Whereas Asia is increasingly viewed as developing rapidly, sub-Saharan Africa has just as often been treated...

Thesis (Ph. D. in Political Science)--University of California, Berkeley, Dec. 1981 Includes bibliographical references