PRAKASH KASHWAN

Prakash Kashwan is pursuing a joint Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science with a focus on international environmental policy. He is currently writing his doctoral dissertation titled ‘Democracy in the Woods’: Property Rights in India’s Forests and Forestlands, which explores how social and political institutions (i.e. the rules, norms, and conventions in use), and regional political contexts, mediate the implementation of policy reforms concerning forest property rights in Western India. This project employs a mixed methods research design to study the ongoing policy reforms that provide for simultaneous recognition of private rights in parcels of forestlands under cultivation prior to the year 2005 as well as the collective rights of communities to protect and manage village forests as commons. The research opportunities offered by these ongoing reforms has allowed Prakash to investigate questions regarding the various intersections of environment, development, and politics.

More broadly, Prakash’s research interests reside in understanding the politics of and processes unleashed by national and international policies on questions of environment and development. In addition, Prakash is also part of a team of Workshop scholars (supervised by Prof. Elinor Ostrom) which is involved in developing analytical tools for multi-level institutional analysis of complex socio-ecological systems. To this end, he employs theories of institutional analysis and political economy combined with a keen understanding of the biophysical context. In terms of his research approach, Prakash is a methodological pluralist in so far as he combines cross-sectional statistical analysis and case studies with institutional and political ethnography.

Prakash’s research and academic endeavors are in the nature of use-inspired basic research (Pasteur's Quadrant), and applied policy research. These interests are closely related to his prior professional experience. Between his first graduate degree in Forestry Management in 1999 and joining the School of Public & Environmental Affairs in the graduate school at IU in 2005, he had an intense engagement with natural resource management programs in South Asia. This included working closely with adivasi (~indigenous) communities in Western India as they are part of civil society attempts at putting in place local institutional arrangements as well as intra- and inter-community conflict resolution mechanisms. During 2003-2004 Prakash was involved in policy and program analysis in the capacity of a Program Associate in the Environment & Development Program at the Ford Foundation’s South Asia office in New Delhi. Subsequently, he also had the opportunity of working with social movements involved in mass mobilization aimed at securing citizen rights to land and other natural resources. Prakash continues to engage in international and national environmental policy debates, including Conservation policies, Carbon Forestry through CDM/REDD+, India’s Forest Rights Act, and Rights-based legislations in general. He is also associated with a number of civil society organizations in India and the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) Research Program in the USA.

Prakash's teaching and research interests are in International Environmental Policy, Environment and Development, Public Policy Process, and Mixed Methods Research. He has taught Introductory Statistics at the undergraduate level for five semesters at the School of Public & Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He is scheduled (Spring 2011) to offer his independent course on Environment and Development entitled 'Stockholm to Copenhagen via Rio’- Environment & Development in a Globalizing World. Prakash keenly looks forward to collaborating with fellow academics.