Assistant Professor

Office: Buch C308
Office phone: 604-827-5126
Email: anjali.bohlken@ubc.ca

Anjali Bohlken (Ph.D. New York University, 2010) specializes in comparative politics and political economy with an emphasis on India. Current research projects investigate the causes and consequences of decentralization and democratization at the grassroots level and the relationship between politician characteristics and performance. Other interests include mechanisms for accountability in democracies, the political economy of development and the causes of ethnic polarization and conflict.

Recent Publications

"Coups, Elections and the Predatory State", Journal of Theoretical Politics 22 (2), April 2010.

"Economic growth and ethnic violence: An empirical investigation of Hindu–Muslim riots in India" Journal of Peace Research, 47(5), August 2010 (with Ernest Sergenti)

"The origins of parliamentary responsibility" in Tom Ginsburg (ed.) Comparative Constitutional Design, New York: Cambridge University Press (with Adam Przeworski and Tamar Asadurian), Forthcoming April 2012

Works in Progress

Democracy from Above: Intra-Party Rivalry and Strategic Local Democratization in India

Upward Accountability: Village Politicians and the Electoral Success of Party Machines in India

Dynasty and Paths to Power

How Do Dynastic Ties Affect the Performance of Indian MPs? (with Kanchan Chandra)

POLI 110: INVESTIGATING POLITICS: AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENTIFIC POLITICAL ANALYSIS

This course prepares students to engage with the field of political science by introducing them to the basic logic and tools used by political scientists to understand and explain the political world. The course will teach students how political scientists ask answerable questions; how we define key political concepts; how we formulate hypotheses and theories about political dynamics; how we measure the phenomena we want to study; how we think about and assess relationships of cause-and-effect; and how we report our findings to the world. We will consider these issues by examining how political scientists have investigated major questions in domestic and international affairs, such as why ethnic diversity sometimes leads to civil war, whether international intervention can bring about democracy and how we can determine which country has the best healthcare policies.

POLI 421C: VIOLENCE, POVERTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

Societies in the developing world are frequently characterized by higher levels of poverty and violence and lower levels of political accountability than those in the advanced industrial world. Why do such challenges arise? Why are they more pervasive in certain places and certain times than others? In this seminar, we will read and discuss cutting edge research that seeks to address these questions. After an introduction and overview of analytical methods, the course will be divided into four parts each of which will focus on the following challenges: 1) Violent Conflict 2) Low Levels of Economic Development 3) Poor Provision of Public Goods and Services 4) Low Levels of Political Accountability. In each part, we will read, engage with, and analyze research that sheds new light on why the challenges come about and thus suggests important policy lessons for domestic and international policy-makers in dealing with these challenges. While the course will be thematically organized, it will derive its empirical material primarily from sub-Saharan Africa, East and South Asia and Latin America.

POLI 323A (3) POLITICS OF INDIA

With its high levels of ethnic and cultural diversity and its record of democratic stability in the context of relatively low levels of economic development, India provides an ideal setting to investigate questions such as: when can democracy be successful in a (relatively) poor country? What explains the occurrence of high intensity violence and  conflict in a democratic setting? When and why do governments have an incentive to implement policies that improve the lives of citizens? Motivated by these questions, this course provides an introduction to the politics of India focusing on the period after independence. The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides an overview of the political, social and economic features that characterize the Indian political system and the historical events that have shaped its development. The second part focuses on integrating this factual knowledge with analytical frameworks to shed light on some key debates.

512A (3) POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DEVELOPMENT

This course examines some key themes in the current literature on the political economy of development, broadly defined. An emphasis will be on understanding the nexus between politics and economic conditions. Some questions we will consider are: How do political considerations influence the redistributive choices of elites? How does economic development influence the way politics is structured, and vice versa? What is the role of politics in explaining particular growth and development trajectories of certain countries or regions? How do economic conditions influence the propensity of groups to cooperate or engage in violence? We will focus not only on the politics of economic growth, but on the political economy of corruption, clientelism, public goods provision and conflict. Since the goal of the course is to familiarize graduate students with the current state of the field, the reading list will emphasize recent works and will draw from the literatures in both political science and economics.