STAFF PROFILE
Dr Ravi Roy
Honorary Principle Research Fellow
College of Design and Social Context
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Dr Ravi K. Roy is the Program Director of International Development and teaches in both the International Development and International Studies programs.
He is a research member with both the Global Cities Institute (in the area of Globalization and Culture) as well as with the Globalism Research Institute at RMIT. Additionally, he serves as a Research Fellow with the Center for Economic Policy Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California.Teaching
- Microfinance
- Development Economics
- International Political Economy
- Governance and Democracy
- Assessing Progress in Developing Countries
Prior teaching
- International Relations
- Globalization
- Public Administration Research Methods
- Strategic Planning
- Public Policy Process
- International Public Policy
Research
Dr Roy's research agenda is motivated by a very simple but important question: why do human beings faced with very similar sets of circumstances nonetheless make very different choices? In attempting to answer that question, his research approach draws on the strengths of two competing disciplinary views on "the nature of man" and "what motivates her". The first is rooted in economics which assumes human beings to be "rational" and the other is psychology which attempts to uncover the reasons behind behaviour that appears “irrational”. Following this line of inquiry, his research focuses on the role of ideas, as expressed through Shared Mental Models, in shaping people’s beliefs and perceptions about how the world works.
Dr Roy has co-authored or edited three books and four published papers on the power and influence of ideas that appear in refereed journals and book chapters on this theme including Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction, with Manfred B. Steger (Oxford University Press 2010), Neoliberalism: National and Regional Experiments with Global Ideas, with Arthur T. Denzau and Thomas D. Willett (Routledge 2007) and Fiscal Policy from Reagan to Blair: The Left Veers Right, with Arthur T. Denzau (Routledge 2003). His current project involves exploring the role of ideas in shaping new directions in US-India Relations in the 21st century and the influence of ideas in shaping national responses to the recent global financial crisis.
Dr Roy is member of the International Studies Association and Public Choice Association and India International Centre.
He regularly meets with and has conducted extensive interviews with elected politicians and senior level administrators at the highest levels in the United States, Britain and India.
Accomplishments and achievements
- Polished Apple Teaching Excellence Award, California State University, Northridge, 2002
- European Union Research Grant $3,000 (US), 1999
- Dissertation Travel Grant (UK), 1998
In the media
What well known scholars have said about his edited volume entitled 'Neoliberalism: National and Regional Experiments with Global ideas':
- “Political scientists and economists alike will learn much from the volume's insightful analysis.” – Benjamin J. Cohen (UC Santa Barbara) Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy
- “[This volume] makes a persuasive case for the importance of mental models-particularly, of our pictures about “how the world works”— in analyzing policy change” – Ronald Rogowski (UCLA), Editor, American Political Science Review
- “By any standard, this is a very significant and ambitious book.” – Michael Munger (Duke University), Editor, Public Choice