Manali Desai is Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California-Los Angeles where she trained as a comparative and historical sociologist. Her work encompasses the areas of state formation, political parties, social movements, ethnic violence, and post-colonial studies. Her book State Formation and Radical Democracy in India, 1860-1990 (2006) is a historical analysis of the emergence of two different welfare regimes in India where social democratic parties have ruled consistently since independence. The book teases out the 'relative autonomy' of politics in the making of welfare regimes, given different traditions of state formation in colonial (and post-colonial) India, and uses several comparative cases including Brazil and Sweden to discipline the analysis. In addition, she has published her research in the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Science History, Comparative Studies in Society and History, and Journal of Historical Sociology.
Her more recent research, funded by the British Academy, focuses on the history of urban communal violence in India. She examines how legacies of state formation and political strategies of parties intertwine in the making of violent events. She has co-edited a volume with Piya Chatterjee (UC-Riverside) and Parama Roy (UC-Davis) titled States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia (2009) which was funded by a Ford Foundation Grant. This volume is a collection of research that draws attention to multiple ways in which gendered actors feature in violent events ranging from the Partition of 1947 to Naxal violence in eastern India, and the pogrom of 2002 in Gujarat.
Her current research is funded by a Leverhulme Research Project Grant (£77,864) (2010-12) titled "Beyond Identity? Markets and Logics of Democratization in India, 1991-Present." This project examines the different logics of democratization that have emerged during the period of market reforms and neoliberalization in India. It will investigate how caste and religion, in particular, have framed emerging political claims, and the consequences of these frames for participatory and social democratic outcomes. The first year of the project will be focused on collecting national-level data on specific political events, protests and various forms of contention from newspapers and other primary sources. This data will be analysed with a view to understanding the major political frames and discourses that have emerged within the context of market reforms. The second year of the study will be based on in-depth interviews among lower caste 'dalit' workers and middle class Hindus in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state. As a city that epitomizes the market transformation of India, studying the political identities of differently situated communities allows us to examine the processes by which these identities are constituted and articulated in regional politics.
Dr Manali Desai is also the Book Review Editor for the British Journal of Sociology.
Selected Publications
BOOKS
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State Formation and Radical Democracy in India, 1860-1990.
Routledge. Series: Routledge Studies in Asia's Transformations. 2006
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States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia, (with Piya Chatterjee and Parama Roy).
Zubaan Books. 2009
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ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Forthcoming 2011. "Parties and the Articulation of Neoliberalism: From ‘The Emergency’ to Reforms in India, 1975 -1991," Political Power and Social Theory.
Forthcoming. "Bengal," in Handbook of Indian Politics eds. Prerna Singh and Atul Kohli. Routledge: New York and London.
2009. De Leon, C., Desai, M. and Tugal, C. "Political Articulation: Parties and the Constitution of Cleavages in the U.S., India and Turkey," in Sociological Theory, vol. 27:3, pps. 193-219.
2009. "Colonial Legacies and Repertoires of 'Ethnic' Violence: The Case of Western India, 1941-2002," Journal of Historical Sociology, 22(2):147-179.
2009. "A History of Violence: Gender, Power, and the Making of a Pogrom in Gujarat ," in eds. Chatterjee, Desai and Roy, States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia, New Delhi: Zubaan Books.
2007. "The Passive Revolutionary Route to the Modern World:Italy and India in Comparative Perspective," (with Dylan Riley), Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 49:4.
2005. "Indirect British Rule, State Formation and Welfare in Kerala, India, 1860-1960," Social Science History, vol. 29:3, pps. 457-8.
2004. "Introduction" to Engendering Violence in South Asia, Special Issue, Cultural Dynamics, vol.16:2-3, pps. 1-15.
2003. "From Movement to Party to Government: A Comparison of Kerala and West Bengal, India," in ed. Jack Goldstone, States, Parties and Social Movements: Pushing the Boundaries of Institutional Change. pps. 147-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Volume named CHOICE Outstanding Academic Publication 2004)
2002. "The Relative Autonomy of Party Practices: A Counterfactual Analysis of Left Party Ascendancy, Kerala, India, 1934-1940," American Journal of Sociology , vol. 108: 2, pps. 616-57.
2001. "Party Formation, 'Political Power and the Capacity for Reform: Comparing Social Policies in Kerala and West Bengal, India," Social Forces, vol. 80:1, pps.37-60.
OTHER ARTICLES
2007. "Wars of Religion," Open Democracy (16-02-2007).