DINSHA MISTREE | Graduate Student in Politics, Princeton University
Home Research Publications Vitae
Current projects:
· The
Child and the State in 21st Century India
Indian politicians have
historically skirted the issue of poverty, and they have been especially
reluctant to improve mass education for poor and rural citizens. In recent
years, however, Indian politicians have increasingly supported mass education
reform, and have even reversed their long-standing resistance to compulsory
education. As a result, literacy has increased almost 20% in the last 20 years,
tens of thousands of new schools have been built in the last 10 years, and just
last summer a compulsory education act was unanimously supported in the Rajya
Sabha, subsequently flying through the Lok Sabha before being signed into law.
To finance these education reforms, both major parties have pledged to increase
spending on education by 2% of GDP by 2012 on top of the already-substantial
increases in outlays made recently. Why are Indian politicians now supporting
mass education reform when they have historically been reluctant to do so? I
argue that, more than domestic factors such as rising incomes, changes in
ethnic divides, or pressures from industrialists, this shift is due to
international factors. International donors are authorizing unprecedented
financial support to government-administered initiatives, creating incentives
for India's politicians to support education expansion and compulsory
education. Understanding the nature of these incentives and how they have
shaped political support for education reform helps frame future discussions of
Indian education policy, while identifying why politicians are now providing
unprecedented support in an inherently redistributive policy-space may also
help us understand how to motivate the state to more effectively fight poverty
more broadly.
· Historical
Institutional Lineages
How do different patterns of historical property
rights' systems affect contemporary public goods provision? Through a careful
examination of rural India, Iyer, Banerjee, and Somnathan (2005) have shown
that when proprietary rights in land were historically given to landlords,
modern-day provision of public goods is significantly reduced, compared to when
proprietary rights were issued to farmers directly. In this project, we examine
the external validity of these findings by examining Italy and Spain. History
suggests that Southern Italy and certain regions in Spain both have
historically had proprietary rights to land issued to landlords, while Northern
Italy and other specific regions in Spain have had proprietary rights to land
issued directly to farmers. Following IBS, we expect to find that Northern
Italy and regions of Spain have enjoyed better public goods provision than
Southern Italy and other regions in Spain, despite the European regions'
experiences of World Wars, civil wars, and national re-organizations.
· Technology and Bureaucracy Project
I am very interested in how technology is used to affect bureaucracies. I have written a; I have also published a book chapter where I discuss the potential dangers of misapplying technology to various bureaucratic processes. Email me for a copy of this chapter.
· The Globalization and Governance Project (with Nazli Choucri)
Typical studies of globalization argue that increasing economic interconnections between states lead to increased cross-border flows of everything from people, culture, and ideas to technology, aid, and capital. Defined in this way, the current economic collapse suggests that globalization is over and we should see a corresponding reduction in non-economic flows. But instead, there is a strong possibility that cross-border flows will continue, and even increase, due to economic decline. We argue that cross-border movements are not simply generated due to increasing economic interconnections; instead, these flows are actually generated by the needs of the societies themselves. For instance, if one society’s economic growth outpaces its population growth, people from countries with fewer jobs will be compelled to migrate. These movements and impacts generate pressures on existing forms of governance, and states – or the international institutions that they create – will transform to adjust to these pressures. Oftentimes, these transformations to governance processes will lead to further uneven growth and development. Thus conceived, most of the common factors attributed to globalization are the result of differentials, rather than increased economic interaction. For a recent article on this topic, click here (published in Current History).
Selected previous projects:
· Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence in World
Politics (Master’s Thesis, advised by Nazli Choucri and Kenneth Oye)
I applied tools from graph / network theory (similar
to social network analysis) to depict patterns of international trade between
countries. In addition to publishing a thesis, I published a chapter (with
Behram Mistree) on identifying clusters of countries that trade with one
another. Using algorithms originally developed for recognizing relations
between genes and proteins, we were able to identify country clusters; when I
return to this project in the future, I would like to examine which of these
clusters adopted preferential trade agreements and which did not. My thesis is
available here.
Email me for a copy of the chapter. I also have a working paper where I examine
the effects of adopting preferential trade agreements on trade available here.
· DARPA / Department of Defense Research Project (with Nazli Choucri and Stuart Madnick)
We created models to predict state stability for the
US military, with broader applications for introducing social science and
management science methods to military planning and strategy. The project has
subsequently been extended by the Department of Defense.
· Nike Global Labor Practices Research Project (for Richard Locke)
We examined labor standards in a global context. With complete access to Nike, Inc., we analyzed the conditions that could ameliorate ‘sweatshops’ and the business consequences of their perpetuation. I helped with statistical analysis on Nike’s business data; I also conducted interviews with factory workers and managers in Turkey, and with European management headquartered in The Netherlands. Several papers have been published on this research. See Prof. Locke’s current research site for an updated list of publications.
· Projects in Low-Income Housing (through the School of
Architecture and Planning, MIT)
I designed low-income housing for refugees returning
to Kabul, Afghanistan with the Special Interest Group in
Urban Settlements (SIGUS) at MIT. Our designs were presented to members of various
NGOS, USAID, and at the World Bank in Washington DC. Click here
for a summary presentation.
In a separate project, I also helped design housing
for Habitat for Humanity in Jamaica through an architecture seminar at MIT.
I have also worked on making a computer game to teach
students about international relations (the game is still in development).
Princeton University, Department of
Politics, Corwin Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544
e-mail: dmistree@princeton.edu
tel: +1 (404) 403 1643
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