Jugdep Chima, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Political Science Coordinator, International Studies Major

Contact
Jugdep S. Chima is an associate professor of political science at Hiram College (2012). Before joining the Hiram College faculty, he taught as a lecturer of political science at the University of California–Berkeley, and also served as the Associate Editor for South Asia for the peer-reviewed journal, Asian Survey.
Professor Chima’s regularly taught courses at Hiram College include: Comparative Politics, Logic and Scope of Political Inquiry, Politics of Developing Areas, Politics of Human Rights, International Terrorism, Identity and Society in Asia, Politics of South Asia, and International Relations of South Asia. Professor Chima serves as the coordinator for the International Studies minor, and is a member of the Diversity Committee.
Education
- B.A. University of California, Berkeley
- Ph.D. University of Missouri, Columbia
Research Interests
Professor Chima’s academic interests are in research methodology, comparative politics, ethnonationalism, and South Asia. He is the author of The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements (Sage Publications, 2010), and editor of Ethnic Subnationalist Insurgencies in South Asia: Identity, Interests, and Challenges to State Authority (Routledge, 2015). Professor Chima is currently working on a book manuscript on ethnopolitics in India’s Northeast.
Selected Publications
- “India as a ‘Crypto-Ethnic Democracy’: The Dynamics of ‘Control’ in Relation to Peripheral Ethnic Minorities,” Third World Quarterly, 42:12 (2021), 2,822-2,840.
- “Limits of Ethnofederalism and Local Political Autonomy Arrangements: Continuing Violence in the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts of Assam,” (co-authored with Pahi Saikia and Aniruddha Kumar Baro), India Review, 15:1 (2016), 136-162.
- “Shiromani Akali Dal and Emerging Ideological Cleavages in Contemporary Sikh Politics: Integrative Regionalism versus Exclusivist Ethnonationalism,” Journal of Punjab Studies, 22:1 (Spring 2015), 143-174.
- “The Sikh ‘Political Prisoner’ Issue and Hunger Strikes: A Study of Political Leadership, Institutional Mobilization Structures, and Emerging Dynamics of Sikh Politics in Punjab,” Sikh Formations, 11:3 (2015), 283-305.
- “The Political Economy of Sikh Separatism: Ethnic Identity, Federalism, and the Distortions of Post-Independence Agrarian Development in Punjab–India,” in Matthew Webb and Albert Wijeweera (eds.), The Political Economy of Conflict in South Asia. (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.)
Fun Facts
- Professor Chima was born and raised in California.