Atlas think tank venturing succeeded faster in military-ruled Ghana than democratic India

Evidence

Shyam Kamath, a young economics professor from California State University, and Parth Shah, a PhD student, went to India. Kamath had already mobilized potential donors and the objective of the trip was to find “the right individuals to manage and run the institute locally.” Charles Mensah, PhD candidate in economics at George Mason, organized the trips to Ghana. “Incorporation, finding premises, recruiting a board of directors, and seeking financial support were all on his agenda.” The Indian trip only bore fruit in 1997 when Shah returned to India to found the Centre for Civil Society. The African trips proved rapidly successful: IEA Ghana was created in 1989 in a country governed by the military. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 573

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did the Centre for Civil Society take nine years to launch in India while IEA Ghana formed in one? Democracy vs authoritarian receptivity?
• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on why liberal economic reforms took root in authoritarian contexts (Pinochet’s Chile).