Adam Michael Auerbach
Biographic Data
| ID | 969255 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam Michael Auerbach |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Auerbach |
| SIGNATURE | AUERBACH A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6564-8655 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 355 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Politics in the Urban Periphery: Citizen-Led Expansion and Informality at the Edges of India’s Cities
Some privately developed neighborhoods on the outskirts of India’s cities are formalized by urban authorities while others are not. What explains this uneven formalization and what are its consequences for public service provision? We explore these questions in the context of peripheral private developments in India. Peripheral private developments are built and planned by private developers at the urban-rural edge and frequently lack zoning appr…
Climate Change and Disability-Inclusive Adaptation: Qualitative Evidence from Uzbekistan
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
The Geography of Citizenship Practice: How the Poor Engage the State in Rural and Urban India
When and why do poor citizens expect the state to respond to their claims, and how do those expectations shape citizenship practice? Drawing on survey and qualitative research in northern India, our study reveals an expectations gap that complicates widely held views of the urban core versus the rural periphery. The urban poor residing in slums are dramatically less likely to believe that they will get a direct response from an official compared …
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums
India's urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their access to local public goods and services - paved roads, piped water, trash removal, sewers, and streetlights. Why are some vulnerable communities able to demand and secure development from the state while others fail? Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in the north Indian cities of Bhopal and Jaipur, Demanding Development accounts for the uneven success of India's slum residents in…
State, Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South
Informal Archives: Historical Narratives and the Preservation of Paper in India’s Urban Slums
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
Neighborhood Associations and the Urban Poor: India’s Slum Development Committees
Clients and Communities: The Political Economy of Party Network Organization and Development in India’s Urban Slums
India’s urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their levels of infrastructural development and access to public services. Why are some vulnerable communities able to demand and secure development from the state while others fail to? Based on ethnographic fieldwork and original household survey data, the author finds that party networks significantly influence the ability of poor urban communities to organize and demand development. In slums wi…
India's urban constituencies revisited
This article examines patterns of voter turnout and electoral competition in India's urban parliamentary constituencies. It places the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in historical context, drawing on constituency-level data from national elections since 1977 to explore broad changes and continuities in electoral competition, party structures, and voter turnout, with particular focus on comparisons between urban and rural India. The purpose of the artic…
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
Clients and Communities: The Political Economy of Party Network Organization and Development in India’s Urban Slums
India’s urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their levels of infrastructural development and access to public services. Why are some vulnerable communities able to demand and secure development from the state while others fail to? Based on ethnographic fieldwork and original household survey data, the author finds that party networks significantly influence the ability of poor urban communities to organize and demand development. In slums wi…
Neighborhood Associations and the Urban Poor: India’s Slum Development Committees
The Geography of Citizenship Practice: How the Poor Engage the State in Rural and Urban India
When and why do poor citizens expect the state to respond to their claims, and how do those expectations shape citizenship practice? Drawing on survey and qualitative research in northern India, our study reveals an expectations gap that complicates widely held views of the urban core versus the rural periphery. The urban poor residing in slums are dramatically less likely to believe that they will get a direct response from an official compared …
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
State, Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
Informal Archives: Historical Narratives and the Preservation of Paper in India’s Urban Slums
India's urban constituencies revisited
This article examines patterns of voter turnout and electoral competition in India's urban parliamentary constituencies. It places the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in historical context, drawing on constituency-level data from national elections since 1977 to explore broad changes and continuities in electoral competition, party structures, and voter turnout, with particular focus on comparisons between urban and rural India. The purpose of the artic…
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
India's urban constituencies revisited
This article examines patterns of voter turnout and electoral competition in India's urban parliamentary constituencies. It places the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in historical context, drawing on constituency-level data from national elections since 1977 to explore broad changes and continuities in electoral competition, party structures, and voter turnout, with particular focus on comparisons between urban and rural India. The purpose of the artic…
Clients and Communities: The Political Economy of Party Network Organization and Development in India’s Urban Slums
India’s urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their levels of infrastructural development and access to public services. Why are some vulnerable communities able to demand and secure development from the state while others fail to? Based on ethnographic fieldwork and original household survey data, the author finds that party networks significantly influence the ability of poor urban communities to organize and demand development. In slums wi…
Neighborhood Associations and the Urban Poor: India’s Slum Development Committees
State, Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South
Informal Archives: Historical Narratives and the Preservation of Paper in India’s Urban Slums
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums
India's urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their access to local public goods and services - paved roads, piped water, trash removal, sewers, and streetlights. Why are some vulnerable communities able to demand and secure development from the state while others fail? Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in the north Indian cities of Bhopal and Jaipur, Demanding Development accounts for the uneven success of India's slum residents in…
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
The Geography of Citizenship Practice: How the Poor Engage the State in Rural and Urban India
When and why do poor citizens expect the state to respond to their claims, and how do those expectations shape citizenship practice? Drawing on survey and qualitative research in northern India, our study reveals an expectations gap that complicates widely held views of the urban core versus the rural periphery. The urban poor residing in slums are dramatically less likely to believe that they will get a direct response from an official compared …
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
Politics in the Urban Periphery: Citizen-Led Expansion and Informality at the Edges of India’s Cities
Some privately developed neighborhoods on the outskirts of India’s cities are formalized by urban authorities while others are not. What explains this uneven formalization and what are its consequences for public service provision? We explore these questions in the context of peripheral private developments in India. Peripheral private developments are built and planned by private developers at the urban-rural edge and frequently lack zoning appr…
Climate Change and Disability-Inclusive Adaptation: Qualitative Evidence from Uzbekistan
Political science (15 works) · Politics (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Geography (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Economic growth (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (7 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Slum (6 works)