Book review of Nandini Sundar’s The Burning Forest

By Safa Joudeh|August 17, 2017|Conflict, Democracy, Forced displacement, Journal of Agrarian Change, Neoliberalism, Political ecology, State in development|0 comments

This post is written by Christian Lund who is Professor of Development, Resource Management, and Governance, at the Department of Food and Resource Economics, at Copenhagen University. It is part of the Journal of Agrarian Change blog, hosted on the Development Studies at SOAS blog. The Burning Forest. India’s War in Bastar, by Nandini Sundar. Delhi: Juggernaut, 2016. Pp. 413+xvi. ₹ (Indian Rupees) 699 (cloth). ISBN 978-93-8622-800-0. Terror is at the heart

Read More

The Global Crisis and the Disintegration of Neoliberalism

By Jo Tomkinson|December 3, 2016|Democracy, Neoliberalism|0 comments

Alfredo Saad Filho is Professor of Political Economy at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research interests include the political economy of neoliberalism, industrial policy, alternative macroeconomic policies, and the labour theory of value and its applications. The certainties that used to hold neoliberalism together are melting into the air: the common sense of the age has degenerated into clichés. Tried and tested policies such as privatisation, marketisation and trade

Read More

Systems in Flux: Constitution-making, Patronage and Post-war Politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka

By Jo Tomkinson|October 12, 2016|Conflict, Democracy, Peace|0 comments

Jonathan Goodhand is Professor Conflict and Development Studies at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research focuses on the political economy of conflict, war to peace transitions and increasingly on the role of borderlands, with a particular focus on South and Central Asia. Oliver Walton is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences. His research focuses on NGOs, civil society

Read More

Overthrowing Dilma Rousseff: It’s Class War, and Their Class is Winning

By Jo Tomkinson|March 23, 2016|Democracy, Neoliberalism|0 comments

Alfredo Saad Filho is Professor of Political Economy at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research interests include the political economy of neoliberalism, industrial policy, alternative macroeconomic policies, and the labour theory of value and its applications. The judicial coup against President Dilma Rousseff is the culmination of the deepest political crisis in Brazil for 50 years. Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of

Read More

Brazilian Democracy in Distress: Unpacking Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment

By Jo Tomkinson|December 17, 2015|Democracy, Neoliberalism, Uncategorized|2 comments

Alfredo Saad Filho is Professor of Political Economy at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research interests include the political economy of neoliberalism, industrial policy, alternative macroeconomic policies, and the labour theory of value and its applications. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies has opened impeachment procedures against President Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers’ Party (PT). This manoeuvre is led by an unholy coalition of opportunistic politicians, grubby businessmen, ravenous financiers,

Read More

Venezuela’s Chavismo at a Crossroads after Landslide Opposition Victory

By Jo Tomkinson|December 13, 2015|Democracy, Uncategorized|0 comments

Ryan Brading is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. He is author of the 2013 book Populism in Venezuela. His research interests include populist politics in Latin America and East Asia. December elections leave Chavismo in disarray The death of the charismatic President Hugo Chávez in March 2013 left an emotional, political and institutional vacuum in Venezuela. Chávez’s fiery rhetoric and alpha male persona captured

Read More

Why Development Defines India’s Elections Today

By Jo Tomkinson|December 6, 2015|Democracy, Uncategorized|2 comments

Subir Sinha is Senior Lecturer in Institutions and Development in the SOAS Department of Development Studies.  His recent research has focused on decentralised development in India, early postcolonial planning, and on the global fishworkers’ movement. He Tweets at @PoMoGandhi. Social science wisdom has long held that Indian elections are determined by ‘primoridial’ collective identities of caste, religion and region. Certainly, all political parties combine these elements in their election calculus, from

Read More