Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Center for Contemporary South Asia

Vineeta Yadav — How Elite Risk Preferences Shape Democracy: Evidence from India and Pakistan

Friday, November 4, 2022

2:00pm - 4:00pm EST

Harvard University, Rm S153, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St

Professor Yadav is an associate professor of political science at Penn State University. She recieved her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University in 2007. Yadav’s research and teaching interests lie in comparative politics, political economy, economic development, and survey research. Her research specifically focuses on the political and policy consequences of institutional choice and design, the comparative study of business and religious interest-group behaviors and, their consequences for political outcomes and policy outcomes, judicial politics in developing countries and, economic development. She specializes in the politics of Brazil, India, Pakistan and Turkey. Her fourth book Religious Parties and the Politics of Civil Liberties (Oxford University Press) will be available in April, 2021.

She has previously published The Politics of Corruption in Dictatorships (co-authored with Bumba Mukherjee, Cambridge University Press 2016)and, Electoral Systems and Judicial Empowerment in Developing Countries (co-authored with Bumba Mukherjee, University of Michigan Press 2014. Her first book Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries (Oxford University Press, 2011) was awarded the 2013 Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Prize by the American Political Science Association (APSA) Political Organizations and Parties Section, the 2012 Rosenthal Prize by the APSA Legislative Studies Section and received an Honorable Mention for the 2012 best book award from the APSA Comparative Democratization Section. She has also published in Comparative Political StudiesPolitical Research Quarterly Party Politics International Interactions Asian Survey and Journal of Public Affairs. Her work on politicians' institutional choices in unconsolidated democracies with a focus on Turkey has received financial support from the US National Science Foundation. Her project on sub-national lobbying and corruption in India has received financial support from the Azim Premji Foundation in India

She is currently working on projects that study the determinants of elite preferences on institutions and economic policies across countries, the rise and consequences of populist parties in developing country democracies, the politics of adopting commercial courts and their economic and political consequences and, factors that shape lobbying practices at the national and sub-national level in India.

Joint Seminar on South Asian Politics