About

Atul Kohli is the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University, with appointments in the Department of Politics and International Affairs. His principal research interests are in the political economy of developing countries, emphasizing the role of sovereign and effective states in promoting inclusive development. Kohli has authored several influential books, including 'India Under Modi: Changing State and Society' (forthcoming 2025), 'Greed and Guns: Imperial Origins of the Developing World' (2022), 'Imperialism and the Developing World' (2020), and 'Poverty amid Plenty in the New India' (2012). His scholarship explores how imperialism, state capacity, and political power shape development trajectories in the global periphery. Kohli has served as the chief editor of the journal World Politics and was Vice President of the American Political Science Association during 2009-10. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been recognized with awards such as the Charles Levine Award for his work on state-directed development.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• History
• Law
• Economics
• Political economy
• Development economics
• Economy

Selected publications

• Democracy and Inequality in India

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-10-11

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  Contemporary India provides a giant and complex panorama that deserves to be understood. Through in-depth analysis of democracy, economic growth and distribution, caste, labour, gender, and foreign policy, Atul Kohli and Kanta Murali provide a framework for understanding recent political and economic developments. They make three key arguments. Firstly, that India's well-established democracy is currently under considerable strain. Secondly, that the roots of this decline can be attributed to the growing inequalities accompanying growth since the 1990s. Growing inequalities led to the decline of the Congress party and the rise of the BJP under Narendra Modi. In turn, the BJP and its Hindu-nationalist affiliates have used state power to undermine democracy and to target Indian Muslims. Finally, they highlight how various social groups reacted to macro-level changes, although the results of their activism have not always been substantial. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand democracy in India today.

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• Airfoil with varying wall thickness

  OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2023-05-31

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  An airfoil includes an airfoil body that has a peripheral wall that defines an exterior side and an interior side that bounds an internal cavity in the airfoil body. The peripheral wall has first and second wall sections joined by a transition section. The first wall section is thicker than the second wall section. The transition section provides a change in thickness between the first wall section and the second wall section. The second wall section includes a cooling hole that has a first end that opens to the internal cavity at the interior side and a second end that opens to the exterior side.

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• State intervention for development

  2022-05-05

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  Why have some states in late developing countries been more effective at growth-promotion than other states? Such variation is more a function of the quality than of the degree of state intervention. Neo-patrimonial states blur the distinction between the private and the public realm; in much of sub-Saharan Africa, such states came into being during the colonial era, and they have proved highly ineffective at promoting industrialization and growth. States in Latin America have been more effective economic actors, but their performance has often been constrained, both by the commodity-dependent economies they have inherited and by the nature of the ruling classes that have often preferred an integration in the global economy. Following decolonization, many Asian countries have sought instead to develop complex economies with significant national industry. In this important sense, such Asian countries as China, India, and South Korea – not to mention Japan – have sought to emulate the advanced industrial countries and, so far, with some success.

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• Greed and Guns

  2022 · 14 citations

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  • Political Science
  • Political economy
  • Political Science

  This Element studies the causes and the consequences of modern imperialism. The focus is on British and US imperialism in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries respectively. The dynamics of both formal and informal empires are analyzed. The argument is that imperialism is moved mainly by the desire of major powers to enhance their national economic prosperity. They do so by undermining sovereignty in peripheral countries and establishing open economic access. The impact on the countries of the periphery tends to be negative. In a world of states, then, national sovereignty is an economic asset. Since imperialism seeks to limit the exercise of sovereign power by subject people, there tends to be an inverse relationship between imperialism and development: the less control a state has over its own affairs, the less likely it is that the people of that state will experience economic progress.

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• Fighting Third World Nationalism

  2020-02-20

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  Abstract This chapter analyzes American interventions in the developing world during the Cold War. While a struggle against communism provided the context of the interventions in Iran, Vietnam, and Chile, the deeper motive was to dislodge nationalists who challenged American design to create a worldwide open economy order. The mechanisms varied, from covert coups in Iran and Chile to hard militarism in Vietnam. The benefits to the United States also varied; it experienced nominal success in Chile but a costly defeat in Vietnam. Democracy in both Iran and Chile was derailed, and both countries remained commodity exporters under American tutelage. By contrast, a repressive communist regime came to control Vietnam that has successfully pursued an economic program of industrialization and poverty alleviation.

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• Introduction

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

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  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science

  Extract when the united States invaded Iraq in 2003, American decision-makers expected to depose Saddam Hussein quickly, install a friendly regime, and leave. The Iraq War did not follow that script. Instead, the United States confronted Iraqi nationalism. A prolonged occupation followed. Although most of the US troops left in 2011, American efforts to shape Iraq continue. During the occupation, American critics of US intervention in Iraq compared it to Vietnam. Senator Edward Kennedy suggested that Iraq was another "quagmire," a term often used during the American war in Vietnam. While these were serious comparisons, they ignored deeper historical parallels. Great Britain created Iraq after World War I by piecing together the outlying provinces of the former Ottoman Empire. British efforts to turn Iraq into an India-style colony then met swift resistance from Arab nationalists, nearly a century ago. London had to order the bombing of Iraq in 1920 to defeat this indigenous opposition. Instead of turning Iraq into a formal colony, Britain installed a pliable Arab monarch, who allowed British troops and advisers to stay and who pursued pro-British policies. Britain's informal empire in Iraq lasted well into the 1950s. The parallels between the US and British experiences in Iraq run even deeper: both expected to be welcomed as liberators to Iraq, but were not; both denied that they had any interest in Iraqi oil, but that was a lie; and, while promising to bring progress, both wreaked havoc on Iraq.

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• Britain’s Informal Empire

  2020-02-20

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  Abstract This chapter analyzes Britain’s informal empire in Argentina, Egypt, and China during the nineteenth century. The evidence is overwhelming that Britain’s primary concern in these regions was economic gain, without force if possible, but with force if necessary. The main mechanism of influence was to create and sustain stable-but-subservient governments in the peripheral countries. Once such regimes were established in client states, informal empire was sustained via a degree of cooperation between the metropolitan and the peripheral elite. The British gained handsomely from such arrangements, especially because they facilitated profitable trade, investments, and loans. Peripheral countries in turn experienced some economic growth but the pattern of development was lop-sided; these countries became commodity exporters without undergoing much industrialization.

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• Conclusion

  2020-02-20

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  Abstract The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the study concerning the motives that drove British and American imperialism, their respective mechanisms of rule, and the impact of their global expansion, especially on the global periphery. The main motive that drove both the hegemonic powers of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries to expand overseas was to enhance their respective national prosperity. While Britain pursued both formal and informal empire, the United States settled mainly for the latter. Britain and the United States pursued formal empire when they could but accepted informal control when they met resistance. The impact of colonialism was more pernicious than that of informal empire. Colonies were exploited by metropolitan countries for their own advantage and seldom experienced economic growth. Countries under informal sway did experience more growth but failed to create diversified economies. Whether emerging China is also developing an informal empire is explored at the end.

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• Seeking Influence Abroad

  2020-02-20

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  Abstract Born an anticolonial nation, the United States burst upon the global scene as an imperial power at the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter analyzes the American expansion into the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific Asia. When the United States became a major industrial power in the late nineteenth century, it sought profit and power overseas, especially new economic opportunities. The United States experimented with colonialism but settled on creating stable but subservient regimes in peripheral countries as the main mechanism of control. Benefits to the United States included gains in trade, opportunities for foreign investments, and profitable loans. Countries under US influence, including the Philippines, Cuba, and Nicaragua, experienced some economic growth but became commodity exporters with sharp inequalities and poor-quality governments.

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• Global Assertion, Soft and Hard

  2020-02-20

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  Abstract This chapter analyzes America’s global assertion in the post–Cold War period. This assertion has followed both economic and military pathways. The imposition of the Washington Consensus on Latin American countries is an example of economic assertion. The United States was moved in this direction to first rescue highly indebted American banks and then to roll back statist models of economic development in the region. Economic benefits to the United States were considerable. Latin American countries experienced a lost decade of growth, followed by some resumption of growth, but were still mainly dependent on commodity exports. Hard militarism in the Middle East has been motivated by goals that were vaguer but included establishing primacy over an oil-rich region. The results have been at best, mixed. The war in Iraq was very costly. A half million Iraqis died. The benefits to the United States are not obvious and Iraq struggles to be a functioning state under American influence.

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Frequent coauthors

• George W. Downs

  134 shared

• Kent E. Calder

  132 shared

• Paul E. Sigmund

  131 shared

• Nancy Bermeo

  127 shared

• John Waterbury

  126 shared

• Richard Challener

  124 shared

• Robert L. Tignor

  124 shared

• Jeffrey H. Herbst

  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

  119 shared

Awards & honors

• Charles H. Levine Award (2005)