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CSLG is organising annual lecture by Atul Kohli

CSLG is organising annual lecture by Atul Kohli

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CSLG is organising annual lecture by Atul Kohli
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CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE

Jawaharlal Nehru University

 

ANNUAL LECTURE 2017

 

By

 

ATUL KOHLI

David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs, Princeton University

 

Chair : NIRAJA GOPAL JAYAL, Professor, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU

 

11.00 AM, Friday, 10 November 2017

Auditorium-I, Convention Centre, JNU

 

Britain's Informal Empire in the Nineteenth Century

(with India in the Background)

 

The presentation will be based on a chapter of the author’s new book (in the making), Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and United States Shaped the Global Periphery. In this chapter Professor Kohli provides an interpretation of the motives, mechanisms, and impact of Britain’s informal empire in the nineteenth century in Argentina, Egypt and China.  The main motive that drove Britain to establish influence over these far flung places was search for profits and power, especially when private profits were of national significance.  EIC’s main mechanism for establishing an informal empire was to create stable but subservient governments on the periphery; such ruling arrangements were often created under duress but then sustained by “cooperative” clients.  As to impact, Britain benefitted handsomely from trade, investment, and financial relationships with client states. The peripheral economies by contrast experienced lopsided development, with some short-term growth but also long term distortions. The impact of Britain’s informal empire was not as pernicious as that of British colonialism, say, in India. However, there were to be no Meiji transformations within the informal empire. Limits on sovereignty were the key variables that help us understand development breakthroughs, lop-sided development, and near stagnation in the nineteenth century global periphery.

 

ATUL KOHLI is the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University. His principal research interests are in the areas of comparative political economy with a focus on the developing countries. He is the author of Poverty amid Plenty in the New India (2012) (a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2012 on Asia and the Pacific); State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (2004) (winner of the Charles Levine Award (2005) of the International Political Science Association); Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (1991); and The State and Poverty in India (1987).  He has also edited or coedited nine volumes (most recently, States in the Developing World, 2017) and published some sixty articles. His current research focuses on the topic of "imperialism and the developing world."  Through much of his scholarship he has emphasized the role of states in the promotion of prosperity and equity in the developing world. He is Editor of the journal, World Politics. During 2009-10 he served as the Vice President of the American Political Science Association.  He has received grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, Ford Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

NIRAJA GOPAL JAYAL is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU. Her most recent book is a history of citizenship in India titled, Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History.

 

 PLEASE JOIN US FOR TEA AT 10:30 AM

ALL ARE WELCOME

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.