The ‘great land grab’ occupies centre stage in debates on Indian political economy today. This project explores the politics of the ongoing rapid and highly contested conversion of agricultural, forest, coastal and pastoral land for industrial and commercial purposes, which are geared towards serving the new economy.

Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and The State is a re-examination of the post-independence history and politics of Gujarat, one of India’s leading federal units. Today, Gujarat is known for its pioneering role in market liberalisation and as the site of ethno-religious strife.

The Middle East suffers from a fragile private sector that is weakly connected with global markets and thrives largely under state patronage. The weak and dependent private sector is one of the most pressing development challenges. A robust private sector is connected both with the challenge of job creation and the creation of an independent constituency for socio-political change.

Shrines occupy a prominent place in the religious, cultural and political life of South Asia. The shrines and their guardians (commonly described as pirs) have traditionally acted as important nodes of power, serving as intermediaries between the ruler and subject. A large body of literature has studied their impact on religious and political environment (a selected list includes: Aziz (2001), Ansari (1992), and Gilmartin (1984)). There is virtually no systematic research, however, on how shrines shape regional patterns of development. This project offers a first attempt in this regard.

This project focusses on the politics of trade protection in the Middle East. Trade policy is often an important medium for rent creation, and can help to explain the micro-foundations of authoritarian rule in labour-abundant economies of the Middle East. Investigating the variation in average tariff rates across more than 4,500 sectors and over time in Egypt and Tunisia, we ask whether sectors with politically connected actors are systematically predisposed to higher levels of trade protection.

Based on case studies of various forms of work and workplaces in the city of Calcutta, this research explores changing attitudes and approaches to work and labour, and the transformation of the experience of work and employment, in the context of economic liberalisation and globalisation in India. The project examines the impact of these on political ideas and practice, and on social relations, norms and identities.

India's recent ascendance to the status of a major economic power is often attributed to the emergence of an enterprise culture. Entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial mentality is usually associated with the economy and business. In this research, enterprise culture is approached in the broader sense of recasting of mindsets, personal identity and individual subjectivity, with profound social and political implications far beyond the economic sphere, notably for the ideas and practices of democracy, citizenship, nationalism and development as well as social and gender relations.

Negotiated settlements in civil wars are relatively rare and have a high risk of renewed violence. The political and economic motivations of rebel groups have been studied to explain the success and failure of peace processes. The objective of this research is to develop theory that explains variation in the outcome of peace processes with rebel groups. First, there is a need to explain why rebel groups with an industrial interest in war sometimes do engage in peace negotiations, and why negotiations are followed by a rich diversity in terms of settlement.

The MNEmerge project’s central research question asks to what extent multinational corporations could represent an alternative to foreign aid when trying to combat poverty. Companies possess money, knowledge, and innovations that could help citizens and governments of low-income countries improve their living conditions. The MNEmerge research team studies how multinational enterprises operate in developing countries, what kinds of benefits the companies get from operating there, and how cooperation between companies and decision-makers could be strengthened.