Locked in Place

"Vivek Chibber's "Locked in Place" is a brilliant, benchmark study of the developmental state and its dilemmas. Over the past two decades there has been a steady move away from systematic class analysis of state strategies toward state-centric approaches. Chibber decisively "brings class back in" in a nuanced and penetrating investigation of how class strategies constrain and intersect the institutional logics of developmental states."--Erik Olin Wright, University of Wisconsin, author of "Class Counts" and "Class, Crisis and the State"

"A truly outstanding book. Chibber presents a novel, powerful, and controversial central thesis that will be of great interest to scholars in the field. He beautifully elaborates the expected consequences of this thesis for comparative historical cases, and presents two critically important, contrasting cases to great effect, with lucidity and elan. The empirical matter is substantial, but is always presented economically and with modesty. The text is extremely well written. The provocative conclusions will, as they should, unquestionably stimulate a raft of further questions and new research."--Robert Brenner

"This book is an excellent piece of scholarship and an important contribution both to the ongoing comparative debate on the role of the state in development and to our understanding of India as a significant and weighty case within that debate. Marked by careful, detailed historical research and unrelenting engagement with general analytical issues, it will be an invaluable resource for future scholars trying to understand the emergence of the post-colonial state in India."--Peter Evans, author of "Embedded Autonomy: States and IndustrialTransformation"