Anirudh Krishna
Assistant Professor of Public Policy Studies
Faculty Advisor, Hart Fellows Program

Anirudh Krishna has a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University, and masters degrees in International Development and Economics from Cornell University and the Delhi School of Economics, respectively.

His most recent book, "Active Social Capital: Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy" was published in 2002 by Columbia University Press, New York, and by Oxford University Press, New Delhi. He is co-author of "Reasons For Success: Learning from Instructive Experiences in Rural Development" (Kumarian, 1998), co-editor of "Reasons For Hope: Instructive Experiences in Rural Development" (Kumarian, 1997), and editor of "Changing Policy and Practice From Below: Community Experiences in Poverty Reduction" (United Nations 2000).

Current and previous research interests include social capital, comparative decentralization, political participation, poverty reduction, and local institutional development. An article on social capital and political participation published in Comparative Political Studies (May 2002) won the best article award from the Comparative Democratization Section of the American Political Science Association.

Most recently, Krishna has been working on poverty and democracy at the micro level. Over the past four years, he has conducted field research on this subject in India, Kenya, Peru and Uganda. Articles emerging from this research, published in the Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Human Development, World Development and elsewhere, can be viewed at www.pubpol.duke.edu/krishna/householdpoverty

Before turning to academia, Krishna worked for 13 years with the senior Indian Administrative Service, where he planned and managed programs for urban and rural development, including a program of integrated watershed management, which won prestigious national and international awards.

Krishna has consulted with the World Bank on numerous occasions and also with the United Nations Development Programme, with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and with a number of non-governmental development organizations.

Krishna is married and has two children.