JOINT SEMINAR ON SOUTH ASIAN POLITICS SERIES
Dr. Bilal A. Baloch is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics and a Lecturer and Regional Director in South Asia, Middle East and North Africa at The Joseph H. Lauder Institute, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
At CASI, Bilal focuses on the political economy of government behavior in India and other developing democracies. Here, he is revising his doctoral dissertation, Crisis, Credibility, and Corruption: How Ideas and Institutions Shape Government Behavior in India, into a monograph. Bilal has presented academic papers at several international conferences, including the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association. In addition to his scholarly publications, his commentary has appeared in a number of outlets, including: The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, and The Hindu. (Source)
In this lecture, Bilal will go beyond the claim that ideas matter in Indian politics, and will identify which set of ideas, as well as how these ideas shape political behavior during a credibility crisis. He will examine two main credibility crisis moments in contemporary Indian history: that which led to the declaration of an internal emergency and suspension of civil liberties by the ruling Congress government in 1974-1975; and the crisis milieu which led to policy paralysis within the UPA government in 2011-2012. This argument draws upon over 120 interviews with state elites, including prime ministers, cabinet ministers, party leaders, senior bureaucrats, and others.
