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Kitaab: Books in Discussion Thirsty Cities Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision in China and India Dr. Selina Ho Assistant Professor in International Affairs National University of Singapore
July 2, 2021 @ 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Kitaab: Books in Discussion
Thirsty Cities
Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision
in China and India
Dr. Selina Ho
Assistant Professor in International Affairs
National University of Singapore
Moderator & Discussant: Dr. Pushkar, Director-ICG
Zoom Live on Friday, 2nd July 2021
4.30 – 5.30 pm IST
Register at: https://bit.ly/35gCbMi
Selina Ho is Assistant Professor in International Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). She specializes in Chinese politics and foreign policy, with a focus on infrastructure politics and water disputes. She is the author of Thirsty Cities: Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2019); co-author of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press 2020), and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations (2020). Selina studied history at NUS before her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. She was a Singapore public servant before joining academia.
A very large number of studies show that democracies outperform dictatorships in terms of both economic growth and provision of public goods. However, China and India are two large and notable exceptions. In this webinar, organized around her book Thirsty Cities, Selina Ho will discuss why authoritarian China provides a higher level of public goods – specifically water – than democratic India. However, the book challenges the argument that democracies or dictatorships matter for public goods provision. Instead, the book shows that the different outcomes in China and India in terms of provision of public goods is best explained by the different types of social contract – a certain set of ideas, principles, and precepts that guide and inform the actions of state actors and ordinary citizens of a country – in the two countries.
Zoom Live on Friday, 2nd July 2021
4.30 – 5.30 pm IST
Register at: https://bit.ly/35gCbMi
