Soren Sudhof

Soren will work with think tanks, academics, and government officials in New Delhi to understand difficulties in setting national policies that are dependent on regional cooperation (or even implementation) to be effective. The 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai revealed serious problems in the national emergency response infrastructure, and the endemic smuggling across all of India's porous borders creates further security risks that cannot be addressed exclusively centrally. However, regional governments' interests often compete with central priorities, and local political parties are often more concerned with local economic growth than national security. This results in ineffective systems. Corruption and the rent-seeking behavior of officials at all levels of government is a substantial part of the problem, and thus inevitably Soren will also seek to better understand the fundamental ethics that drive public participation and shape citizens' perception of their future economic and political roles.