The fieldwork on which this collection of essays on peasants and workers in Nepal is based was undertaken in the mid-1970s, by an international team associated with the Overseas Development Group at the University of East Anglia. The fieldwork also gave rise to several other publications, including Nepal in Crisis and The Struggle for Basic Needs in Nepal (both now re-published by Adroit Publishers), by the same authors. In this collection, however, an attempt was made to look in more deta...

This book moves the discussion of affirmative action beyond the United States to other countries that have had similar policies, often for a longer time than Americans have. It also moves the discussion beyond the theories, principles, and laws that have been so often debated to the actual empirical consequences of affirmative action in the United States and in India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Both common patterns and national differences are examined. Much of what...

The rise of modern public finance revolutionized political economy. As governments learned to invest tax revenue in the long-term financial resources of the market, they vastly increased their administrative power and gained the ability to use fiscal, monetary, and financial policy to manage their economies. But why did the modern fiscal state emerge in some places and not in others? In approaching this question, Wenkai He compares the paths of three different nations—England, Japan, and C...

Twenty years ago India was still generally thought of as an archetypal developing country, home to the largest number of poor people of any country in the world, and beset by problems of low economic growth, casteism and violent religious conflict. Now India is being feted as an economic power-house which might well become the second largest economy in the world before the middle of this century. Its democratic traditions, moreover, remain broadly intact.How and why has this histor...

Hidden behind the much-touted success story of India’s emergence as an economic superpower is another, far more complex narrative of the nation’s recent history, one in which economic development is frequently countered by profoundly unsettling, and often violent, political movements. In Democracy against Development, Jeffrey Witsoe investigates this counter-narrative, uncovering an antagonistic relationship between recent democratic mobilization and development-oriented governanc...

'Boserup's contribution to our thinking on women?s role in development cannot be underestimated. Her keen observations, her use of empirical data and her commitment to greater gender equality are still an inspiration to students, researchers and activists who are interested in a better and more equal world.' From the new Introduction by Nazneen Kanji, Su Fei Tan and Camilla Toulmin 'Women?s Role in Economic Development has become a key reference book for anyone - student, scholar, or pract...

During the twentieth century, Japan was transformed from a poor, primarily rural country into one of the world's largest industrial powers and most highly urbanised countries. Interestingly, while Japanese governments and planners borrowed carefully from the planning ideas and methods of many other countries, Japanese urban planning, urban governance and cities developed very differently from those of other developed countries. Japan's distinctive patterns of urbanisation are partly a prod...

Based on archival research undertaken in Japan, Britain and the United States, Mihalopoulos offers a new perspective on the relations between gender hierarchies and the political economy in a newly modernized Japan.

Taking India by storm, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been one of the most talked about figures all around the world. His enigmatic persona and his forceful leadership have created a polarized world where some idolize him, while others question his motives and methods. In an attempt to break the myths around who Narendra Modi really is, the author attempts to take us through a journey of the leader's life, his political aspirations, his growth within the party, his remarkable stint in Gu...

The difficulty of finding solutions After six decades of policy-making and planning that appear perfect on paper, vast pockets of poverty persist across the country, accompanied by low human development indices. In Poor but Spirited in Karimnagar, Sumita Dawra recounts her experiences as collector in the district of Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh, and grapples with the question of why even with crores of rupees of government funding, well-meaning implementing agencies and constructive action...

This volume engages with the topical issue of land rights in neoliberal India. It examines government policies, laws, land governance and land reforms from the perspective of social justice and people’s response to dispossession of land.Looking beyond the dominant discourse of land acquisition and the conception of land as a commodity for economic growth, the book explores critical themes including issues of social identity, culture, livelihood and food security through a study of ...

This volume presents a set of readings which primarily focus on the social, political and cultural aspects of village life. A few readings discuss issues of agrarian change and the economy of rural India. A comprehensive introduction provides a detailed historical analysis of the study of rural India, the changes in rural social life, and the forces shaping life in villages today. The articles, drawn from writings over four decades (1972 to 2010), cover various features of village society:...