Power, Policy, and Protest

India's attempt to boost exports and create jobs by establishing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) represents an intensification of its market-based development paradigm. More than a decade after importing the SEZ concept from China, India contains hundreds of these walled-off, deregulated, low-tax enclaves. But in democratic India, protest movements arose against many proposed SEZs. Through detailed case studies of SEZ development in eleven states, this book examines regional variations in both popular mobilization and state response.