Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs underwent a leadership change for the first time in eight years on July 1, 2024.
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Patrick Heller
Interim Director, Graduate Program in Development, Lyn Crost Professor of Social Sciences, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Sociology
280 Brook Street, Room 238
Areas of Expertise
Human Rights, Inequality & Poverty, Social Movements, Urban Policies & Politics, Urbanization, Welfare Policy
Areas of Interest
Development, globalization, social theory, democratization, governance, urban transformation
Biography
Patrick Heller is the Lyn Crost Professor of Social Sciences and the Director of the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at the Watson School for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He holds a join appointment in the Department of Sociology.
Heller's main area of research is the comparative study of social inequality and democratic deepening. He is the author of "The Labor of Development: Workers in the Transformation of Capitalism in Kerala, India" (Cornell 1999) and co-author of "Social Democracy and the Global Periphery" (Cambridge 2006), "Bootstrapping Democracy: Transforming Local Governance and Civil Society in Brazil" (Stanford 2011) and "Deliberation and Development: Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies" (World Bank Group 2015). Heller has published articles on urbanization, comparative democracy, social movements, development policy, civil society, and state transformation. His most recent collaborative project - Citizenship, Inequality, and Urban Governance (CIUG) in India - has generated multiple reports and articles.
Research
Urban governance and citizenship
Research in Brazil, South Africa, and India to explore the relationship between citizenship and the quality of urban governance, with a specific focus on the capacity of municipalities to promote inclusive development. Most recent project - Citizenship, Inequality, and Urban Governance (CIUG) in India - in collaboration with Ashutosh Varshney and Siddharth Swaminathan, has generated multiple reports and articles.
Comparative democratic deepening
Under what conditions can democracy in the Global South be deepened? A wide range of articles on Brazil, India and South Africa examining the politics of decentralization, theories of democracy, the role of civil society, and the making of the welfare state.
Publications
“Civil society, the State and Institutionalizing Welfare Rights in India,” (with Anindita Adhikari) World Development, 182, 1-12, 2024.
“The Rich Have Peers, The Poor Have Patrons: Engaging the State in a South Indian City” (with Siddarth Swaminathan and Ashutosh Varshney). American Journal of Sociology. 129 (1), 76-122, 2023.
“Parties, Civil Society and Democratic Deepening: Comparing India, Brazil and South Africa” Studies in Indian Politics, 11(1), 10–26, 2023.
“Democracy in the Global South” Annual Review of Sociology. (48) 463-484, 2022.
“The Age of Reaction: Retrenchment Populism is India and Brazil,” International Sociology, 35:6, 590-609, 2020.
“Toward a Spatial Measure of the 21st Century Developmental State Capacity” (co-authored with Marcelo Bohrt-Seeghers and Diana Graizbord), Sociology of Development, 6:2, 250-274, 2020.
“Trajectories of Democratic Deepening: Brazil, India and South Africa Compared” Theory and Society, 48:3, 351-382, 2019.
Teaching
IAPA 1001: Foundations of Development
Recent News
Anindita Adhikari, who earned her Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University in 2024, found the dialogues and debates she engaged in about global challenges across traditional academic disciplinary barriers through Watson's Graduate Program in Development have made her a better researcher and colleague.
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Patrick Heller comments for Outlook India, "In Kerala, because CPI (M) has been in and out of power, it has always maintained closer ties to its rank and file and has had to appeal to a vibrant democratic society where issues of environment, gender and other rights-based issues always have to be addressed.”
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Patrick Heller comments for HuffPost, “The kind of investments required – in high-quality education, health care and safety nets ― are relatively straightforward. Making them effectively is the challenge.”
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News from Watson
Top ‘News from Watson’ stories of 2023
2023 was an exciting year at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs with the Institute welcoming its largest-ever cohort of military fellows, celebrating 10 years of the China Initiative and welcoming new leaders. This year’s top 10 stories from the Watson Institute appear below.
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In a new paper, a team of researchers led by members of the Watson Institute's Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies found that civil society organizations in the Global South played a critical role in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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