After earning his PhD, Harriss taught at the University of East Anglia and became the Dean of the School of Development Studies in 1987. In the early 1990s he joined the faculty of London School of Economics as Programme Director in Development Studies, in what was to become DESTIN, a postgraduate institute As Programme Director, he also was a managing editor of the Journal of Development Studies from 1999 until 2004. Harriss stayed at the London School of Economics until 2007, when he moved to Vancouver to become Simon Fraser University's Director of the School of International Studies. Harriss eventually stepped down as Director in 2012. He also became Editor-in- Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies from 2010 until 2014. In 2017, Harriss was one of three professors from SFU to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Publications
1982 Capitalism and Peasant Farming: agrarian structure and ideology in northern Tamil Nadu. Oxford University Press.
1984 . Routledge.
1990 Urban Labour Market Structure and Job Access in India: a study of Coimbatore. International Institute of Labour Studies, Geneva.
1992 Rural Development: theories of peasant economy and agrarian change. Hutchinson.
1999 Managing Development: Understanding Inter-Organisational Relationships. London: Sage Publications and the Open University
2000 Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press; and Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2001/2002 Depoliticizing Development: the World Bank and Social Capital. Delhi: LeftWord, UK and US Editions London: Anthem Press 2002.
2006 Power Matters: Essays on Institutions, Politics and Society in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2004 Politicising Democracy: Local Politics and Democratisation in Developing Countries. London: Palgrave Macmillan
2008 Green Revolution and After: Studies in the Political Economy of Rural Development in South India. London: Anthem Press.
2010 Globalization and Labour in China and India: Impacts and Responses. London: Palgrave MacMillan
2011 Understanding India’s New Political Economy: A Great Transformation? London and New York: Routledge
2013 India Today: Economy, Politics and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press/ Oxford University Press, Delhi
2014 Keywords for Modern India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016 Reinventing Social Democratic Development: Insights from Indian and Scandinavian Comparisons. Copenhagen, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press.
