Robert Jenkins

Research Interests: politics and political economy of India, international and comparative politics of development, post-conflict reconstruction
robert.jenkins@hunter.cuny.edu
Degrees/Diplomas: B.A., Harvard University; D.Phil., Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (UK)

Professor of Political Science, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York; Associate Director, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center, CUNY; Roosevelt House Faculty Associate.

Recent publications can be found here.

Books

power policy protestRobert Jenkins, L. Kennedy, and P. Mukhopadhay, eds., Power, Policy, and Protest: The Politics of India’s Special Economic Zones (Oxford University Press, 2014).

More than a decade after importing the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) concept from China, India has hundreds of these walled-off, deregulated, low-tax enclaves. But an industrialization and export-promotion strategy pioneered in authoritarian China has faced huge political resistance in democratic India, where a range of protest movements have arisen. A central issue has been the alienation of privately owned land by business interests, abetted by the state. This book examines variations within and between eleven states as they pursue one of India’s most controversial reform measures. Detailed case studies investigate differences in the nature and extent of SEZ-related political mobilization and the means employed by governments to manage dissent.

peacebuildingRobert Jenkins, Peacebuilding: From Concept to Commission (Routledge, 2013).

Through an analysis of international efforts to rebuild states that have collapsed into civil war, this book traces the emergence of the idea of peacebuilding in official and academic discourse; examines the politics surrounding the redesign of the UN’s peacebuilding architecture in 2005 (including the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission); and critically assesses the Commission’s performance during its first six years in existence.

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