There is a widely-held belief that strong governments deliver reforms and sustainable growth. Research, however, shows otherwise.

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Irfan Nooruddin about his research on this topic, based on his must-read book Coalition Politics and Economic Development: Credibility and the Strength of Weak Governments.

Dr. Nooruddin is is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Indian Politics in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Irfan conducts research in the political economy of development, trade, and investment, and the challenges of democratization in the 21st century. He is the author of The Everyday Crusade (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Elections in Hard Times (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Coalition Politics and Economic Development (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and more than thirty scholarly articles and book chapters. In 2012, he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC., and is a Team Member of Lokniti: Programme in Comparative Democracy in New Delhi, India.

He has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a BA in Economics from Ohio Wesleyan University. He was born and raised in Bombay, India.

You can download his book from this link: https://www.coalitionpoliticsandeconomicdevelopment.com/chapters.html

Reading recommendations:

- Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel Huntington

- Democracy and Development by Adam Jaworski

- Scientist: E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature by Richard Rhodes