Adam Auerbach
Bio:
Adam Auerbach is Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. His research centers on local governance, urban politics, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on South Asia and India in particular.
Auerbach’s first book, Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums (Cambridge University Press, 2020), accounts for the uneven success of India’s slum residents in demanding and securing essential public services from the state. The project draws on more than two years of fieldwork in the north Indian cities of Jaipur, Rajasthan and Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Demanding Development won the Dennis Judd Best Book Award from the Urban and Local Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The dissertation on which Demanding Development is based also won three awards, including APSA’s Gabriel A. Almond Award for best dissertation in comparative politics.
Auerbach’s second book (co-authored with Tariq Thachil), Migrants and Machine Politics: How India’s Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness, was published by Princeton University Press in 2023. Migrants and Machine Politics won the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, the Francine Frankel Prize from the South Asia Section of APSA, the Giovanni Sartori Book Award from the Qualitative and Mixed-Methods Research Section of APSA, and the Best Book Award from the Experimental Research Section of APSA.
Auerbach’s research on governance and development in India appears in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Contemporary South Asia, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Studies in Comparative International Development, World Development, and World Politics. His journal articles have won several awards including the Heinz I. Eulau Prize for best article in the American Political Science Review and Best Article Award from the American Journal of Political Science.