Good Political Science South Asia programs/faculty?

[islander]

Hello,

I applied to graduate school last year and got into Georgetown but without any funding. I'm going to take another stab at it and was wondering if people can recommend grad schools that have a strong South Asia program? Or polisci faculty who work on South Asia? Thanks a lot!

[Penelope Higgins]

I'm not a South Asia scholar so I can't generate a meaningful list of scholars for you. But I want to urge you to consider that you want a department that not only has a South Asia scholar or two (and perhaps an area studies program at the university with scholars from other disciplines who work on the region) but also has faculty who work on your substantive issues of interest, since you'll want them to guide your research as well.

[balderdash]

(I think Penn has a few, as do many strong CP programs around the country (I'm not sure about them at all, but check Bloomington, Berkeley, UCSD, and Madison). In fact, in my search for Africanists, it seems all I can find are East and South Asian scholars!

[morningwoo]

Bloomington immediately springs to mind because it has Sumit Ganguly who is well-established in the field of South Asian security studies. He is only one guy but he is well connected and provides a good ecosystem for his grad students for publishing articles and jobs afterwards.

I second Mocha's suggestion of Penn. Devesh Kapur heads the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) and that provides a good avenue for interested grad students to engage with people in the field.

Then there's Ashutosh Varshney at Brown who's known for his book on communal violence in India. From what I understand, Brown's program is more qualitative as well, if that appeals to you.

Johns Hopkins SAIS might be another place to check out. It's a policy program, not an academic one but their expertise in South Asia is decent. If you want to go into a public policy career after your PhD then of course, it's best to be based in D.C.

If you are interested in Security, MIT has a fairly solid program. Vipin Narang has recently taken up an Assistant Professorship there after getting his PhD from Harvard.

[islander]

This is great! Thank you for the suggestions.

I am looking for schools that offer more qualitative programs and am looking for comparativists who work on democracy, political parties, political economy etc.

I'm checking out these Unis now, thanks again!

[vigilante]

I was hoping people could provide more advice on this area. Thanks!

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

I heard Yale and Harvard were good for Asia.

Though I would not know personally

[your humble servant]

Look at Ohio State (Nooruddin) and U of Michigan (Hicken). Good scholars and in comparative.

[andy2013]

chicago (dan slater, paul staniland, lisa wedeen, iza hussin) also has incredible support for south asia across the disciplines 

[kuromu]

On the topic of Asia, I was wondering if anyone has recomendations for people/schools with a focus on China and Japan?

Edited May 1, 2013 by kuromu

[clangeroo]

Cornell has both China focus and Southeast Asia focus.

Otherwise for China - U of Mich, Yale used to be but lately eh according to my advisor, Princeton.

[IRToni]

UCSD for Asia-Pacific. Stanford also has someone doing China. Harvard of course!

UC Berkely is quite big on China, UWisconsin as well (especially IPE).

UTexas at Austin has someone with IR and Japan, which I believe is quite rare.

Definitely echoing Princeton and Michigan as well!

 

BUT: It also depends on your substantive interests and to some degree your ontological etc. priors. Cornell, last I checked, was quite post-positivist in most of the stuff they do, e.g.

[30rus]

i believe Jamshid Choksy at UIBloomington and the Dhar India centre there could be a good place to work on south Asia