Dr Pritish Behuria

Overview

My research focuses on the political economy of late development. I am particularly interested in how developing country governments have dealt with the challenges associated with contemporary capitalism. Most of my previous work has examined the political economy of Rwanda's recovery since the genocide. As a Hallsworth Research Fellow, my work focuses on three main topics. 

My Hallsworth Research Fellowship will examine a 'Varieties of African Developmentalism' project, which develops a comparative political economy study of four successful late developing African countries: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Botswana and Mauritius. Though all four countries have often been characteristed as 'developmental states', they have all developed strikingly different trajectories. This project examines the ways in which the combination of domestic politics in these countries and international economic pressures has motivated these countries to develop different forms of economic transformation. The project is also partly funded by the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre.

The Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre has supported my project on 'The Politics of Deals in African Conglomerates'. This project engages with political settlements theory and the deals/rules framework to examine the development of African Conglomerates in four countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and South Africa.

I am also very interested in how concerns about the environment interact and often contradict the motivations to pursue economic transformation in India. I conducted research on the 'anti-manufacturing' focus of India's solar energy ambitions and have also developed an interest in the contradictory pressures associated with solving the air pollution crisis in New Delhi and the broader NCR region.