February 24, 2010
What Makes India Work?
The Rudolph's Lifetime Quest
2008 saw the publication by Oxford University Press, New Delhi of an extensive three-volume, career-spanning collection of the writings of Professors Emeriti of Political Science Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, titled "Explaining Indian Democracy: A Fifty-Year Perspective."
Southern Asia at Chicago is now pleased to make publicly available online a comprehensive review of the collection by John Harriss, Professor and Director of the School for International Studies at Simon Frasier University, originally published in Pacific Affairs (Volume 82, No. 3, Fall 2009).
The collection, made up of Volume I: The Realm of Ideas, Volume 2: The Realm of Institutions, and Volume 3: The Realm of the Public Sphere, has garnered a widespread re-appreciation of the Rudolphs' work and legacy. In his review in The Hindu, Arvind Sivaramakrishnan hails Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph as "two of the most distinguished social scientists ever to have written about India." In an India Seminar review, K.K. Kailash calls "Explaining Indian Democracy" relevant to "anyone interested in understanding the fascinating voyage of Indian democracy, politics and society over the last half century."
More prolific than ever, in the same year the duo published their sixth jointly written monograph, "Making U.S. Foreign Policy Toward South Asia: Regional Imperatives and the Imperial Presidency" (Indiana University Press, 2008), a survey of U.S. South Asia policy under Johnson, Reagan, and George W. Bush. In Asian Affairs (Volume 40, Issue 2 - subscription required), Woodrow Wilson Center fellow Bhumitra Chakra states that "the Rudolphs have produced an impressive book on US South Asia policy, explaining its inconsistency, the reasons behind this, and the policy-making process that generates such inconsistency.” A review by John Ikenberry in Foreign Affairs is available online.
Additionally, 2008 saw a chapter published in Joseph Wong and Edward Friedman's edited volume Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, titled "Congress Learns to Lose: From a One-Party Dominant to a Multi-Party System in India". (Routledge listing) (Google Books preview)
The Rudolphs continue to accrue awards for life-time achievement from across the globe. In September 2009, they were the recipients of the Grain of Sand Award, presented by the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Conference Group at the American Political Science Association annual meeting. Echoing Wisława Szymborska's "We call it a grain of sand," the award underscores the centrality of meaning making in both the constitution and study of the political; and drawing on William Blake's "To see a world in a grain of sand," the award honors the capacity of interpretive scholarship to embody and inspire imaginative theorizing.
In 2007, they received the Maharana Mewar Foundation James Tod Award for distinguished writing about India. The award was presented by H.R.H Sriji Arvind Singh Mewar, 76th custodian of the Mewar dynasty, in Mewar, Rajasthan.
Receiving the Maharana Mewar Foundation James Tod Award from Sriji Arvind Singh Mewar
The James Tod Award ceremony, Mewar, India
Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago from 1964 to 2002. Their publications and academic histories are available on their respective departmental webpages (Lloyd I. Rudolph) (Susanne Hoeber Rudolph). Their scholarly autobiography "Writing India: A Career Overview" is available online with subscription from India Review (Volume 4, Number 2, April 2005).