Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia

Ashutosh Varshney is the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University. He is also the founding Director of the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. Previously, he taught at Harvard University (1989–1998) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2001–2008).

His books include Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy (2013), Collective Violence in Indonesia (2009), Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Yale, 2002), India in the Era of Economic Reforms (1999), and Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India (Cambridge, 1995).

Varshney has received several awards for his research, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Carnegie Fellowship, the Gregory Luebbert Prize, and the Daniel Lerner Prize. His work has also been supported by research grants from the Ford Foundation, Social Science Research Council, U.S. Institute of Peace, Open Society Foundation, and the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

His research and teaching span three main areas: ethnicity and nationalism, the political economy of development, and South Asian politics. His academic work has appeared in journals such as World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Daedalus, Journal of Development Studies, World Development, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Democracy, Journal of East Asian Studies, Foreign Affairs, and Economic and Political Weekly. In addition to scholarly publications, he contributes guest columns to newspapers and magazines and is a contributing editor at The Indian Express.

He is currently working on three major projects: a multi-country study on cities and ethnic conflict; the political economy of urbanization in India; and an analysis of Indian politics and society between elections.

Varshney served on former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Millennium Task Force on Poverty (2002–2005) and has advised institutions such as the World Bank, UNDP, and the Club of Madrid.