Katharine Adeney
Professor of Comparative Politics, Faculty of Social Sciences
Contact
Biography
Professor Katharine Adeney is a leading scholar in Comparative Politics with a particular focus on South Asia. She joined the University of Nottingham in 2013, following academic appointments at Sheffield, Balliol College Oxford, LSE, and SOAS. Her research explores majoritarianism in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; ethnic conflict regulation and institutional design; national identity formation; federalism; and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. She is currently co-authoring a monograph on Majoritarian Nationalisms in South Asia with Prof Wilfried Swenden.
Katharine is a dedicated and innovative educator with a strong commitment to inclusive teaching practices. Her modules-ranging from the Politics of Ethnic Conflict, Introduction to Comparative Politics, How Voters Decide, and the International Politics of the Asia Pacific-are deeply informed by her research on South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. At the same time, she actively draws on the diverse national contexts and lived experiences of her students, encouraging them to critically engage with theoretical frameworks through their own perspectives.
She is a passionate advocate for decolonising the curriculum and was a member of the Faculty of Social Sciences group that produced the Guide for Reflection and Action. In recognition of this work, the group received a Lord Dearing Award in 2023 for excellence in Learning and Teaching. Katharine has also been nominated multiple times for a Staff Oscar and in 2024-25 was nominated for a Lord Dearing Award for exceptional student support. Her engagement with pedagogical research spans over a decade, beginning with her 2008 ESRC-funded project with Dr Sean Carey on developing undergraduate curricula in quantitative methods
You can follow her on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
Expertise Summary
Majoritarianism in South Asia, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Democracy in South Asia, Ethnic conflict in South Asia, Comparative federalism, Inclusiveness of Assessments in HE, Innovative Assessments in HE.
Teaching Summary
Her primary teaching commitments have been to modules relating to questions of ethnic conflict, nationalist movements and institutional design, as well as the International Politics of the Asia… read more
Research Summary
Majoritarianism in South Asia
She is currently co-authoring a monograph on Majoritarianisms in South Asia with Professor Wilfried Swenden (Edinburgh) building on their joint paper on whether India can be understood as a consociational democracy and her framework in Nations and Nationalism for assessing degrees of ethnic democracy in different countries, applied to India as a case study. Their framework for understanding different types of majoritarian nationalisms was recently published in a review symposium.
De/Centralization Dataset
She has created an open access dataset on Provincial Autonomy in Pakistan 1956-2020 in collaboration with Dr Filippo Boni (Open University). This dataset produces annual codes through expert analysis of levels of de/centralization in Pakistan's federation between 1956 and 2020 (also covering East Pakistan until 1971). It includes three politico-institutional measures, the legislative and administrative autonomy of 22 policy areas and five fiscal areas. The first research paper appearing from this dataset appeared in Regional and Federal Studies in 2022. A further paper, situating Pakistan within other federations with a chequered democratic history appeared in 2023. Both are free to view, open access papers.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
Together with Dr Filippo Boni (Open University) she has been publishing on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor since 2020 when the paper on CPEC and Federalism appeared in Asian Survey. In 2021 they co-authored a report on How Pakistan and China Negotiate for the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace's China Local/Global project. See her participating in a Carnegie panel discussion on this report here. In 2024 they published an article in Commonwealth and Comparative Politics on Global China and Pakistan's Federal Politics, which is free to access and download.
Selected Publications
Ph.D. supervision
I am interested in supervising students working on the following areas:
Linguistic nationalism in India or Pakistan, either at the national or the state/provincial level.
Majoritarianism in India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.
Areas of current Ph.D. supervision
Raian Hossain Small powers in South and East Asia
Supervision as first supervisor of successfully completed Ph.D. theses
Citizenship and Kashmiris (Dr Tusharika Deka)
Economic Diplomacy in Pakistan: Relations with China (Dr Khalid Jarral)
Party competition and fractionalization in India (Dr Dishil Shrimankar)
What do Sino-Pakistani Relations tell us about civil-military Relations in Pakistan? (Dr Filippo Boni)
The impact of sectarianism on democratic consolidation in Iraq (Dr Sangar Mantki)
Bottom-up and Top Down Nationalism in China (Dr Oana Burcu)
A comparison of the use of religious rhetoric in Iraq 2004-5 (Dr Simon Staffell)
Supervision as second or joint supervisor of successfully completed Ph.D. theses
One party dominance and federalism in Malaysia (Dr Tricia Yeoh)
The Evolution of Counter-Insurgency Doctrine in Pakistan (Dr Khurrum Siddiqui)
Counter Cultures in Israel (Dr Veronika Poniscjakova)
Rising China and India: Peace or Threat? (Dr Lan-Shu Tseng)
The Women's Movement in Brazil
Politics and the Party System of Bangladesh
Her primary teaching commitments have been to modules relating to questions of ethnic conflict, nationalist movements and institutional design, as well as the International Politics of the Asia Pacific, Comparative Politics, How Voters Decide and Global Asia. All these modules are informed by her previous and current research on the countries of South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. However, she is interested in learning more about the countries of her students as they relate to questions raised on the modules.
She was a member of the Decolonising the Curriculum Faculty of Social Sciences group involved in producing a Guide for Reflection and Action. In 2023 this group won a Lord Dearing award, celebrating excellence in Learning and Teaching.
In addition to her Lord Dearing Award she has been nominated for a Staff Oscar multiple times and is a committed teacher, having gained teaching experience at four other institutions (Sheffield, Oxford, LSE and SOAS). She has completed an HEA accredited Certificate in Learning and Teaching and is keen to develop her students' analytical skills. She uses Problem Based Learning in her undergraduate and postgraduate teaching - and has produced a Game of Thrones inspired guide to constitutional design in divided societies as well as to electoral systems. You can view her YouTube video of five different electoral systems applied to the world of Westeros here.
Past Research
Her doctoral research at the LSE was a comparative analysis of federalism and ethnic conflict regulation in India and Pakistan. Building on that research enabled her to publish more widely on national identity in India, and on the politics of identity in the constitution making process in Afghanistan.
She has also published on understanding the different outcomes of democratisation in South Asia, together with Andrew Wyatt at the University of Bristol.
She has most recently engaged with developments in the federal system of Pakistan, after the 18th Amendment passed in 2010. This was informed by her engagement with the Forum of Federations' program in the country as Lead Consultant.
She was a key member of the Leverhulme funded network: 'Continuity and Change in Indian Federalism'. This project ran between 2014 and 2016 and was in collaboration with the Universities of Edinburgh and Bristol in the UK and the University of Delhi, Hyderabad University and Burdwan University in India.
She organised and edited the #indiavotes2014 blog through the Ballots and Bullets blog, founded Asia Dialogue and is a regular media commentator.
Future Research
AI in Assessments
How Assessments can be made more inclusive.
KATHARINE ADENEY and FILIPPO BONI, 2023. Federalism and regime change: De/Centralization in Pakistan – 1956-2020 Regional and Federal Studies. 33(5), 725-753 DARDANELLI, PAOLO, KINCAID, JOHN, ADENEY, KATHARINE, MOSCOVICH, LORENA, OLMEDA, JUAN CRUZ, SCHLEGEL, ROGERIO, SUBERU, ROTIMI, BONI, FILIPPO and EUSSLER, SANTIAGO LACROIX, 2023. Authoritarianism, democracy and de/Centralization in federations: what connections? Regional & Federal Studies. 33(5), 577-606 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2022. Highway to success: is the CPEC a winner? Seminar Magazine. 754, 25-30 SWENDEN, WILFRIED and ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2021. Democracy and Federalism in India: Mutually Reinforcing?. In: BENZ, ARTHUR and SONNICKSEN, JARED, eds., Federal Democracies at Work. Varieties of Complex Government University of Toronto Press. 218-238
KATHARINE ADENEY and HARIHAR BHATTACHARYYA, 2018. Current challenges to multinational federalism in India Regional and Federal Studies. 28(4), 409-425 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2018. Divide to Rule? Federal innovation (and its lack) in South Asia Available at: <http://50shadesoffederalism.com/federalism-conflict/divide-rule-federal-innovation-lack-south-asia/> ADENEY, KATHARINE and TAGGART, PAUL, 2015. Introduction: The Future of Democracy Government and Opposition. 50(3), 325-335 ADENEY, KATHARINE and TAGGART, PAUL, 2015. Special Issue on The Future of Democracy Government and Opposition. 50(3), 325-548 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2015. India Political Insight. 6(1), 28-31 ADENEY, KATHARINE and WYATT, ANDREW, 2010. Contemporary India Palgrave.
ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2009. The federal election in Pakistan, February 2008 Electoral Studies. 28(1), 158-63 ADENEY, KATHARINE and CAREY, SEAN, 2009. Contextualising the Teaching of Statistics in Political Science Politics. 29(3), 193-200 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2009. Nationalism. In: MCLEAN, I and MCMILLAN, A, eds., The Concise Dictionary of Politics Third. OUP. 357-359
ADENEY, KATHARINE and WYATT, ANDREW, 2008. Ethnicity, Identity and Nationalism in Developing Countries. In: DESAI, VANDANA and POTTER, R, eds., The Companion to Development Studies, Second Edition Hodder Arnold. 481-85
ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2007. Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan Palgrave.
ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2007. The ‘necessity’ of asymmetrical federalism? Ethnopolitics. 6(1), 117-120 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2007. In the line of fire: are things getting too hot for Musharraf? Newsbrief (Royal United Services Institute). 27(6), 65-67 ADENEY, KATHARINE and SAEZ, LAWRENCE, eds., 2005. Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism Routledge.
ADENEY, KATHARINE and WYATT, ANDREW, 2004. Democracy in South Asia: Getting Beyond the Structure-Agency Dichotomy Political Studies. 52(1), 1-18 ADENEY, KATHARINE, 2003. Centrifugal and Centripetal Elements of Indian Federalism. In: MITRA, SUBRATA and RILL, BERND, eds., Indien heute: Bennpunkte seiner Innenpolitik (India Today: Domestic Priorities) http://www.hss.de/downloads/internetargu41.pdf. Hans Seidel Stiftung. 47-54