Wednesday, October 23
6:00 – 7:30 pm
CGIS South S354
1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138
A light supper is provided. Please RSVP to aisp@fas.harvard.edu.
Governments, it is argued, are responsible for providing and protecting public goods. But what if they fail to do so? Is the private provision of public goods, as an act of charity, a threat to the legitimacy of government and the realization of citizenship? Pakistan is an ideal place to examine this question because governments have a poor record in providing and protecting public goods and because philanthropists, predominantly religiously motivated, are providing vital welfare services to tens of millions of people. A telling example of this is that before the government established the National Disaster Management Authority, three years ago, Pakistan’s philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi ran the de facto national emergency response system.
Based on seven months of research in Pakistan, visits to more than 140 Muslim charities, and conversations with hundreds of providers and beneficiaries, Professor Candland’s paper explores the intersections of private and public provision of public goods and the consequences for government legitimacy and for citizenship.
In addition to teaching at Wellesley College, Candland serves as Co-Director of the South Asia Studies Program. He is also Co-Founder and Advisor of the Center for Religious and Community Studies, based in Surabaya Indonesia. His expertise includes politics and political economy of South and Southeast Asia, particularly India, Indonesia, and Pakistan; international and comparative labor politics; Islamic welfare associations; Islam and reproductive health; and Islamic education. Candland earned a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.