Biography
Louise is Professor of Politics in the King’s India Institute.
Her latest monograph Making India Work: The Development of Welfare in a Multi-Level Democracy is published by Cambridge University Press (2025). Making India Work examines the development of welfare in India over the last century from the early decades of the twentieth century to the present. Other books include Deconstructing India’s Democracy: Essays in Honour of James Manor, edited with Rob Jenkins (Orient Blackswan, 2025); The Politics of Poverty Reduction in India: The UPA Government, 2004 to 2014 (with James Chiriyankandath, Diego Maiorano and James Manor) (New Delhi, Orient Blackswan, 2020); Indian Federalism (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2019); Politics of Welfare: Comparisons across Indian States, edited with Rajeshwari Deshpande and KK Kailash (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2015); Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins (Hurst & Co/Oxford University Press, 2013).
Louise is former Managing Editor of the journal Regional and Federal Studies, and an editorial advisory board member of Pacific Affairs and India Law Review. Before joining King’s in 2011, she was Joyce Lambert Research Fellow in Politics at Newnham College, Cambridge. Louise holds a DPhil in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex. She was a Thouron Scholar (MA South Asia Regional Studies) at the University of Pennsylvania and has a BA (Hons) History from Cambridge.
Research
- Federalism, democracy and territorial politics
- History and politics of Indian social policy
- Political economy of development in India
- Diaspora politics
Louise is currently the UK Principal Investigator of Diaspora Politics and the International Mainstreaming of National Populism (InDiPop) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK, as part of an Open Research Area project of the national research funding agencies of France (ANR), Great Britain (ESRC), Canada (SSHRC) and Germany (DFG), with Japan’s national research funding agency JSPS as an associated partner.
Information about previous research projects supported by funders including the British Academy, British Council, Economic and Social Research Council, European Research Council, and Leverhulme Trust can be found on her Research Profile.
Teaching
Postgraduate
- 7YYINGA4 Global Affairs Capstone Project
- 7YYIN030 Global Welfare Politics
Further details
See Louise's research profile