Professor Takeshi Ito is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and faculty of the Asian Studies Programme and the Environmental Program in Colorado College. Takeshi’s research interests include agrarian and environmental change, democratization, political economy of development, and power, domination and resistance.
This talk examined the ways in which the rural poor are actually linked to the state and how they conceive democratic citizenship in their own terms. It sheds light on the role of village elites in the local processes of democratization and their relations with ordinary villagers and state actors including district and subdistrict officials, district politicians, and parastatal organizations.