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Prof. Devesh Kapur has published a book titled “Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India”. He is associate professor of political science and holds the Madan Lal Sobti Professorship for the Study of Contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania.
(Prof. Devesh Kapur)
He can be contacted at: dkapur@sas.upenn.edu
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a) You can find a description of the book at:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9202.html
Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India
Devesh Kapur
Cloth | 2010 | $35.00 / £24.95
344 pp. | 6 x 9 | 27 line illus. 76 tables.
e-Book | 2010 | $35.00 | ISBN: 978-1-4008-3508-9
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Figures and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter 1: The Missing Leg of the Globalization Triad: International Migration 1
Chapter 2: Analytical Framework and Research Methodology 23
Chapter 3: Selection Characteristics of Emigration from India 50
Chapter 4: Economic Effects 84
Chapter 5: Social Remittances: Migration and the Flow of Ideas 124
Chapter 6: International Migration and the Paradox of India's Democracy 162
Chapter 7: The Indian Diaspora and Indian Foreign Policy: Soft Power or Soft Underbelly? 185
Chapter 8: Civil or Uncivil Transnational Society? The Janus Face of Long-Distance Nationalism 210
Chapter 9: Spatially Unbound Nations 253
Appendix I: Survey of Emigration from India (SEI) 273
Appendix II: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Methodology 281
Appendix III: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Questionnaire 287
Appendix IV: Database on India's Elites (1950-2000) 293
Bibliography 297
Index 315
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What happens to a country when its skilled workers emigrate? The first book to examine the complex economic, social, and political effects of emigration on India, Diaspora, Development, and Democracy provides a conceptual framework for understanding the repercussions of international migration on migrants' home countries.
Devesh Kapur finds that migration has influenced India far beyond a simplistic "brain drain"--migration's impact greatly depends on who leaves and why. The book offers new methods and empirical evidence for measuring these traits and shows how data about these characteristics link to specific outcomes. For instance, the positive selection of Indian migrants through education has strengthened India's democracy by creating a political space for previously excluded social groups. Because older Indian elites have an exit option, they are less likely to resist the loss of political power at home. Education and training abroad has played an important role in facilitating the flow of expertise to India, integrating the country into the world economy, positively shaping how India is perceived, and changing traditional conceptions of citizenship. The book highlights a paradox--while international migration is a cause and consequence of globalization, its effects on countries of origin depend largely on factors internal to those countries.
A rich portrait of the Indian migrant community, Diaspora, Development, and Democracy explores the complex political and economic consequences of migration for the countries migrants leave behind.
Devesh Kapur is associate professor of political science and holds the Madan Lal Sobti Professorship for the Study of Contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Kapur makes a powerful case that international flows of people are shaping the world in ways with which we have yet to come to grips. Kapur artfully combines case studies, statistical analysis, and new surveys, from both India and the United States, to paint a fascinating picture of India's experience that is full of twists and surprises. He documents how the Indian diaspora has been a source, not just of remittances, but also of ideas, networks, influence, and even democratic stability. Emigration leaves a large footprint on the Indian polity and economy. But whether it produces good or ill effects, Kapur concludes, depends more on domestic structures than on global ones."--Dani Rodrik, Harvard University
"This book has four achievements. It is the best account to date of one of the major phenomenon of our time: the creation of a powerful Indian diaspora and its impact on India. It sets new benchmarks in innovative ways of collecting data and introducing empirical rigor to discussions of the subject. It makes a deeply interesting theoretical argument about how exit options may help mitigate conflict. And finally, it shows how often, development is the product of many unintended actions. It combines a novel historical imagination with good social science."--Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president, Center for Policy Research Delhi
"Truly original, this book opens up an entirely new area of study. By looking at how the movement of people across the world influences the countries of their origin and then carefully tracing these causal connections with reference to India, Kapur is setting an agenda that others will follow."--Atul Kohli, Princeton University
"This is a landmark in migration studies, and in the study of the Indian diaspora and its effects on both host countries and India. The book revolutionizes our understanding of the Indian diaspora, and the political, economic, and social effects of contemporary migrant communities in general."--Steven Wilkinson, Yale University
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b) A recent review of the book in the Indian Express:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/those-who-left/720193/0
Saubhik Chakrabarti Posted: Sat Dec 04 2010, 01:33 hrs
DIASPORA, DEVELOPMENT, AND DEMOCRACY: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India
DEVESH KAPUR
Oxford University Press
Pages: 325
Rs 695
A banal tale from when this reviewer had completed his Master’s — everyone in his class, economics, JNU, everyone from Delhi School of Economics, everyone from everywhere it seemed, although a few were exceptions, were applying to study abroad. This is so banal because the same story applied to many graduate/ post-graduate classes before this reviewer’s and to all those which came after. But did any of us think this banal story may have an extraordinary dimension? That skilled, relatively socially privileged Indians going abroad and staying there may have made it easier for the socially disempowered Indians to enter the Indian political establishment and stay there?
The argument that international economic migration from India was a factor in domestic political empowerment is among the most fascinating arguments of this very good book. The social elites’ exit option, as Devesh Kapur calls it, made social non-elites’ entry options in politics easier. Had a lot of well-educated, rich, upper middle class, middle class boys and girls stayed home, would socially disadvantaged groups have found it tougher to get political space? Educated Indians who have stayed at home and who often complain about lack of “quality” in politics should find this a provocative premise.
Kapur’s thesis, actually quite a few distinct theses, has many more dimensions, of course. He investigates not just skilled migration but also unskilled migration. His data work on the Indian diaspora is superb. Even readers who don’t have professional interest in how social scientists go about building the empirical foundations of their work should find it easy to understand and admire Kapur’s data-hunting and data-interpretation skills.
The author, as you would expect, spends considerable time on the brain drain/brain gain issue and the insights are valuable for public policy. Obviously, when you look at Bangalore, you think of the positive effects of the diaspora. But look at our health care centres. They are terrible maybe because with so many doctors emigrating, and the natural tendency of the better quality of the stay-at-homes being to specialise, there aren’t enough, decent, quality primary health physicians. On the other hand, the competition for the necessarily few exit options may also raise general skill levels among student populations. All of these are interesting arguments and policymakers must pay attention to these. The quality of teachers in higher education, or the lack of quality, may have deep links with emigration volumes.
I found Kapur’s discussions on the foreign investment/remittances/ NRIs question somewhat underwhelming by the standards of the rest of the book. Not a whole lot new or intellectually stimulating there. That India’s flourishing diamond industry — apart from more obvious examples — is in part a result of positive spillover from emigration is more or less well-understood. Even so, the sections on these issues are still probably the best analysis/data interpretation available on the subject.
A wonderfully insightful last section in the last chapter, “Spatially Unbound Nations”, should not be missed. This deals with how international migration has shaped notions of citizenship. And within that discussion is a sub-discussion on internal migration, movement of Indians within the country, and the political tensions they can generate. Kapur quotes B.R. Ambedkar and Indira Gandhi. Speaking at different times, both of them supported the notion of common citizenship but both took note of “local concerns” and “sons of the soil” arguments. Kapur notes that courts, which have had to deal with the legal fallout of many of these tensions, haven’t provided a coherent argument either, given that there’s “rank political opportunism” in such cases. Surely, this failure over time of the political/judicial class must be partly responsible for what’s happening in Maharashtra now, for example?
Many more such questions, equally important and interesting, suggest themselves after the reader finishes Kapur’s book (don’t ignore the appendices; they give an excellent idea of how to do good data work). And the ability to provoke such questions is the book’s biggest virtue.
Devesh Kapur’s book should produce at least a couple of more excellent political economic studies.
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c) A brief resume can be found at:
http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/about/people/devesh
Director
Devesh Kapur was appointed Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India in 2006. He is Associate Professor of Political Science at Penn, and holds the Madan Lal Sobti Associate Professor for the Study of Contemporary India. Prior to arriving at Penn, Professor Kapur was Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, and before that the Frederick Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard. His research focuses on human capital, national and international public institutions, and the ways in which local-global linkages, especially international migration and international institutions, affect political and economic change in developing countries, especially India. His new book, Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of International Migration from India on India, was published by Princeton University Press in August 2010. He is the recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Teaching Prize awarded to the best junior faculty, Harvard College, in 2005.
Professor Kapur holds a B. Tech in Chemical Engineering (1983) from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University; an M.S. in Chemical Engineering (1985) from the University of Minnesota; and a Ph.D. (1994) from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.
Selected Publications
Books
Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India. Princeton University Press, 2010. [HTML]
Give Us Your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World (with John McHale). Center for Global Development, 2006. [HTML]
Public Institutions in India:Performance and Design (with Pratap Bhanu Mehta). Oxford University Press, 2005. [HTML]
The World Bank: Its First Half Century (with John P. Lewis and Richard Webb). Brookings Institution Press, 1997. 2 vols. [HTML]
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Additional links:
* Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania
http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/about
Mission Statement Founded in 1992, the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania is the only research institution in the United States dedicated to the study of contemporary India. A national resource, it fills an urgent need for objective knowledge of India's politics and society, rapidly changing economy, and transformation as both an ancient civilization and major contemporary power.
The Center's key goals are to nurture a new generation of scholars across disciplines and to provide a forum for dialogue among the academic, business, and foreign policy communities.
Through its collaborative research initiatives, seminars, conferences, publications, and outreach, the Center provides in-depth, policy-relevant analysis of the most pressing issues facing India and the Indo-US relationship today.
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*Book available on Amazon
*Book available on Oxford University Press, India
http://www.oup.co.in/search_detail.php?id=145542
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