November 29, 2016
Two Watson scholars, Ashutosh Varshney and Patrick Heller, along with fellow experts, recently released a working paper on the quality of urban citizenship and access to services in Bangalore.
December 8, 2015 The Times of India
Ashutosh Varshney and Patrick Heller discuss Modi's newly announced urban plan entitled Smart Cities in the India Times, "Perhaps the most telling evidence of the importance of participation comes from the experience of the poor and less educated in Bangalore. We found that although participation rates overall are low, the poor who do participate get a better quality of life in terms of access to basic infrastructure and services than those who do not participate."
July 24, 2015
A new book edited by Patrick Heller, sociologist and Watson faculty, and Vijayendra Rao, a lead economist at The World Bank, offers the first interdisciplinary exploration of the role of deliberation in development.
April 29, 2015
According to Patrick Heller, professor of sociology and international affairs and an adviser on the recently released India Exclusion Report 2013-14, "This report is a path-breaking effort to provide reliable and systematic data and analysis on patterns of social exclusion in India. By exposing the ways in which policies across areas as diverse as education, health, employment and urban planning are failing to include the most marginalized and the most vulnerable, the report can serve as a vital resource for policy and opinion-makers alike."
May 28, 2014
In the Providence Journal, Patrick Heller, professor of sociology and international studies, discusses what India needs from its newly elected Prime Minister and why Modi may be the person to turn things around.
May 8, 2013
Listen to Patrick Heller talk about the challenge of creating an inclusive India in an interview on Almirah Radio, recorded in Delhi where he is currently a visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research. Almirah Radio is produced by Meara Sharma '11 and Henry Peck '11, with support from the Brown-India Initiative.
February 6, 2013
Writing in the Indian Express, Patrick Heller explains the complex social dynamics revealed by the popular protest that has filled Delhi since the gangrape and murder of a young woman in December. He cautions that it's too soon to measure the results of more than a month of street demonstrations and public outcry. "The movement has already succeeded in starting a public conversation, the first step towards changing gender norms," writes Heller. "Whether or not it can translate this discursive moment into institutional change will of course depend on how parties and the state respond."
November 7, 2012
Patrick Heller observes the "creative tension" between political and civil society in today's Indian Express, India's leading English-language daily. Noting several weeks of increasingly dramatic conflict between the activist group India Against Corruption (IAC) and the political establishment, Heller warns against giving up on civil society as a critical component of democracy. [Above: Anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal at a press conference in New Delhi last month. European Pressphoto Agency]
October 18, 2012
Patrick Heller, professor of international studies and sociology, spoke to the New Delhi-based news network ZeeNews about managing sustainable development in India's capital city. "The future of Delhi as an urban, metropolitan city is bright, but the biggest challenge is that of inclusive growth as almost 65 percent of Delhiites who live in slums have no rights," Heller said. This challenge is not limited to Delhi, he added, pointing out that half of India will be urbanized by 2030. Professor Heller is currently a visiting senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi.
February 21, 2012
The India Initiative has been launched at Brown, based at Watson under the leadership of Institute Professor Ashutosh Varshney. The initiative will have two profiles – one research-related and the other dealing with India's public sphere and policy debates. An initial project on urban governance has already begun. Jointly directed by Varshney and Institute Professor Patrick Heller, the project is building collaborative arrangements with two Indian institutions: the Center for Policy Research (Delhi), a leading policy research institute; and Janaagraha (Bangalore), a major urban non-governmental organization. Early work is focused on Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore.
September 9, 2011
Despite increasing interest in how citizen involvement in local government can improve governance and lead to civic renewal, questions remain about the impact of such participatory democracy. In Bootstrapping Democracy: Transforming Local Governance and Civil Society in Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2011), Institute Associate Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Professor Patrick Heller investigate participatory budgeting – a mainstay now of World Bank, UNDP, and USAID development programs – to ask whether its reforms truly make a difference in deepening democracy and empowering civil society.
May 27, 2011
June marks a milestone in doctoral training at the Institute, as faculty complete the first year of training for doctoral students under a five-year NSF-funded IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) program on development and inequality. The IGERT program is a complement to the six-year-old Graduate Program in Development (GPD) at Brown.
January 29, 2011
From the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland, to popular protests across Egypt, inequality is increasingly the watchword for global leaders and local activists alike. In this time of growing emphasis, the Watson Institute’s five-year-old strategic focus on inequality represents the vanguard of academic research and training, producing new analysis and next-generation leadership to address a pressing problem.
January 27, 2010
How should development in the Global South be conducted in a “post-neoliberal” world where free-market economic policies have run their course? In a special issue of the Institute-based journal, Studies in Comparative International Development (SCID), scholars address this question through critical and comparative lenses.