Pritish Behuria

I am a political economist, taking an interdisciplinary approach to analysing the constraints and possibilites associated with countries exerting more economic autonomy from subordinate positions within the global economy. I am currently a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at The University of Manchester's Global Development Institute (GDI). I am also a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow 2024/2025. I am also an Affiliate at the University of Manchester's Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI).

At GDI, I am the Research Group Convenor for the State-Society Relations Group (Politics, Governance and Management). I am also the Pathway Lead for the MSc International Development: Politics, Governance and Development Policy programme. I usually convene the Political Analysis of Development Policy MSc course and contribute to a range of courses including Global Political Economy, Industrial Competitiveness, Politics, Governance and Development, Development Fieldwork and Development Fundamentals. In 2020/2021, I was nominated by students for two SEED Outstanding Staff Awards for Academic Advising and Teaching. Previously, I have served as the Deputy Director (and Acting Director) of GDI's Doctoral College.

I completed my PhD in Development Studies at SOAS, University of Lonon (2015). Previously, I have taught at SOAS and the LSE before first joining Manchester as a Hallsworth Research Fellow (and then becoming Lecturer in 2020 and Senior Lecturer in 2022). I have held honorary/visiting positions at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Public Policy's Global Economic Governance Programme, the University of Manchester's Effective States and Inclusive Development Reserach Centre and the University of Botswana.

I am also the current Reviews Editor for the Journal of Development Studies. I am the Founder and Convenor of the Politics and Political Economy Study Group at the Development Studies Association, the Founder and Convenor of the Politics and Political Economy Working Group at the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes and the Political Economy of Industrial Development group at the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy. I am also currently External Examiner at the University of Leeds (and have previously been External Examiner at the University of Edinburgh and SOAS).

I have four main areas of research. The first examines the contemporary vulnerabilities of macro-level development strategy. Through analysing the politics of financial integration and economic transformation, my work focuses on how contemporary dependent relationsips shape prospects for late development. My research centres analysis of how colonialism and decades of market-led reforms shape contempory poltiical economy challenges. Primary research for this project has focused on Eastern and Southern Africa including Rwanda, Botswana, Mauritius and Ethiopia.

The second project is a study of domestic capitalist classes and state-business relations in African countries, with research conducted in eight countries: Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana and Mauritius. 

The third project links my research on the challenges of promoting economic transformation to a key concern in the 21st century: addressing climate change. Since 2016, I have been researching India's solar energy sector, with several stints of fieldwork in India since then. Building on my recent World Development paper (2020) on India's solar energy sector, my future research examines why industrial policy is so difficult in India's renewable energy sectors. I am also part of a collaborative project at SCI on Global Energy Transitions. 

I welcome enquiries from prospective doctoral students on any of these subjects or on global political economy, postcolonial political economy, the politics of economic transformation, state-business relations and industrial policy in Sub-Saharan African or Asian countries.

I have also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Commonwealth Secretariat, United Nations Development Programme, USAID, BMZ, GIZ and the UK's Department for International Development among others. My research has contributed to work in The Economist, The East African, The Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Welle, Radio France International, Le Monde, The Independent (Uganda),  The New Times (Rwanda), Africaisacountry and other online media.

I have been interviewed on several podcasts about my research including Poliko, Conversations, A Correction and Ideas Untrapped.