Subject(s): Comparative politics, Globalisation in India -- Central-local government relations in India in Case studies. -- Gujarat (India) in Politics and government. -- Development failure and success, globalization in India, infranational comparisons and comparative politics, theory of polycentric hierarchy, multilevel hierarchy, business responses and investor behaviour in dirigist but multilevel state design of study -- National-level analysis- Disaggregating the central state : Regional variation in large scale investment, central discrimination, alternative institutional explanation, political economy of divided state, liberalization and central state in India -- Subnational variation mapped -- Regional strategies toward the dirigiste state : Bureaucratic development in Gujarat,strategy of partisan confrontation in west Bengal, anti-central mobilization in Tamil Nadu,vertical interactions in pre and post 1991 India -- Subnational state as a developmental actor : Importance of regional institutions, development strategies in Indian regional states, institutional capacities in India's regions, sticky institutions in west Bengal, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu after 1991- comparative institutional analysis -- Divided loyalties- regional politics of divergence : Gujarat- roots of classic competitive capitalism, west Bengal- politics of vertical confrontation and regional protection, Tamil Nadu- cultural sub nationalism and industrialization -- Weapons of the strong- business responses in the regions : State-level entry costs, incentives v/s infradtructre, institutional credibility, micro-regulatory costs at the state level -- Indian in Comparative perspective -- Comparative extensions : Comparative theory of development failure and success, comparing china with democratic India and democratic Brazil -- Regional landscapes and economic development in dirigiste states : Subnational pathways in India, national political institutions and regional strategies , neoliberalism, institutional change and regional activism