India, the world’s largest democracy, has witnessed significant democratic backsliding over the past decade, especially following the victory of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. Some of the core pillars of the republic, such as secularism, are being challenged at both the state and civil society level, while the BJP continues to compromise important state institutions such as the Election Commission. What can an analysis of India’s rapidly changing political economy, its developmental history, and its relationship with the global economy tell us about the current predicament of increasing authoritarianism?

Pranab Bardhan is Professor of Graduate School at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on the political economy of development policies, and on international trade. A part of his work is in the interdisciplinary area of economics, political science, and social anthropology. His current research involves theoretical and empirical work on decentralized governance, and the political economy of development in China and India.

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests include globalization, international trade and finance, employment patterns, macroeconomic policy, gender issues, poverty and inequality. She has authored and edited a dozen books and more than 180 scholarly articles, most recently Demonetisation Decoded: A Critique of India’s Monetary Experiment. Her research output has been recognized through several national and international prizes and she has advised governments in India and other countries at different levels.

John Harriss is Professor Emeritus in International Studies at Simon Fraser University. He has a long history of research in and on India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, and has written and edited over ten books on related topics. His areas of research include the political economy of development, Indian politics, political participation and civil society in India, social policy in India and other ‘emerging economies’, institutional theories, and agrarian change (especially in South India).

Register here: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlceCsrz8iHdM7xnKLLVyll1Kp-vMh8EGF

This is our third panel in the series on “The Political Economy of Rising Authoritarianism”. The panels provide analytical rigor and historical context rooted in the tradition of political economy to understand contemporary problems of rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding in a global context.