Anoop Sadanandan (JD, PhD) is a lawyer and political economist. He studies and writes about the economy, law, politics, and India.
He is the author of a book—Why Democracy Deepens (Cambridge University Press 2017)—and several academic and journalistic articles. His book explains how India's momentous economic and social changes shaped its politics and promoted grassroots democracy (Excerpt here).
He was trained as political economist in Duke University, and received legal education at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and Harvard Law School.
He lives—and works in a law firm—in Manhattan, New York. Tokyo though is his home, which, as Naguib Mahfouz noted, "is not where you were born... [but] where all your attempts to escape cease."
Wherever he is, he likes post-war Japanese literature (especially Endo Shusaku, Matsumoto Seicho, Mishima Yukio, and Murata Sayaka), films (notably Krzysztof Kieślowski, Kurosawa Akira, David Lean, Miyazaki Hayao, and Ozu Yasujiro), and sushi.
Publications
- Overcast Minds: Caste Consciousness and Academic Performance.
- Economic and Political Weekly, 2021.
- The 2021 Kerala State Election will be Historic. Here's why.
- The Wire, April 9, 2021.
- Secularism is Still Thriving.
- The Indian Express, August 21, 2020.
- Why the BJP's Hindutva Experiment Failed in Kerala.
- The Wire, May 27, 2019.
- The Congress Party's Hindutva Plank is Nothing but a Dire Play With Fire.
- The Wire, January 7, 2019.
- What Lies Beneath the Alarming Rise in Violence Against Dalits?
- The Wire, June 15, 2018.
- Literacy, Information, and Party System Fragmentation in India.
- Comparative Political Studies, 2018 (with Arturas Rozenas. James Caporaso Award for the best published research in 2018).
- Understanding Narendra Modi's Political Appeal.
- The Wire, May 4, 2018.
- Toxic Myths About Muslims are Putting India on the Road to Ruin.
- The Wire, March 19, 2018.
- Are Women in India Hampered by 'Hindu Rate' of Gender Discrimination?
- The Wire, February 19, 2018.
- South India is the Final Frontier in the Contest Between Hinduism and Hindutva.
- The Wire, January 28, 2018.
- Gujarat's Voters are BJP's Greatest Strength — and its Biggest Weakness.
- The Wire, December 19, 2017.
- Explaining Popular Participation in India's Local Democracy: Some Lessons From Panchayats in West Bengal.
- India Review, 2017.
- Why Democracy Deepens: Political Information and Decentralization in India.
- Cambridge University Press, 2017.
- How Dainik Jagran's Exit Poll may Have Helped the BJP Take UP.
- The Wire, March 16, 2017.
- India's Growth is Rainproof, but it has Exposed a Glaring Urban-Rural Divide.
- DailyO, August 31, 2016.
- Modi is Losing the Youth in the Absence of 'Ache Din'.
- The Wire, June 17, 2016.
- The BJP's Electoral Triumph in Kerala Could Reshape Politics in the State and Beyond.
- The Wire, May 27, 2016.
- Political Economy of Suicide: Financial Reforms, Credit Crunches and Farmer Suicides in India.
- Journal of Developing Areas, 2014.
- Patronage and Decentralization: The Politics of Poverty in India.
- Comparative Politics, 2012.
- Bridling Central Tyranny in India: How Regional Parties Restrain the Federal Government.
- Asian Survey, 2012.
- The Parliamentary Election in India, April-May, 2009.
- Electoral Studies, 2009.
Copyright © 2021 Anoop Sadanandan.