Electoral Narratives of Democracy and Governance in India
Electoral Narratives of Democracy and Governance in India

Author: Yatindra Singh Sisodia

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-08-07

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1040101208

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The book examines the influence of context in which elections in contemporary India take place. It explores the interplay of elements of democracy and governance in electioneering—a process of the conglomeration of everything related to the election, including campaigns, approach of political parties, approach of election commission, code of conduct, election manifestos, voting and—message-design of electoral communication in India. The volume: • Is founded on a variety of conceptual approaches: political economy approach, public sphere approach, community and context approach, federalism approach, institutional approach, and cultural approach. • Draws on qualitative and quantitative analysis of rigorous field data. • Underscores the contexts, contours, and cultures of elections in India; • Analyses the ‘narratives’ inherent in electoral campaigns and electoral marketing; • Studies complex, overlapping and multidimensional ways elections can be studied; • Explicates the goal of electioneering in contemporary India—whether it is an ‘institution-driven’ or an ‘actor-driven’ process. The volume will be essential reading for students, teachers and researchers of Indian politics and South Asian studies.

Costs of Democracy
Costs of Democracy

Author: Devesh Kapur

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 019909313X

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One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.

Oral Democracy
Oral Democracy

Author: Paromita Sanyal

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1107019745

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Studies citizens' deliberation on governance and development in Indian democracy, and the influence of state policy and literacy, analysing three hundred village assemblies. This title is also available as Open Access.

How India Became Democratic
How India Became Democratic

Author: Ornit Shani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1107068037

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Uncovers the greatest experiment in democratic history: the creation of the electoral roll and universal adult franchise in India.

Stories of Democracy
Stories of Democracy

Author: Mary Ann Tétreault

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780231114899

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A sophisticated investigation of the shifting tides of democratic governance in modern Kuwait from 1921 to the present based on interviews both with political activists and members of the political elite, Stories of Democracy sheds light on a wide array of issues concerning Middle Eastern politics and democratic institutions in general. Mary Ann Tétreault explores how various political factions have sought to advance their own notions of Kuwaiti history and politics through distinctive popular appeals: (1) pro-democracy forces focusing on Kuwait's relationship to the universal values of the democratic world around them, and (2) anti-democrats proffering Arab and Muslim religious and cultural traditions. She explores how such dramatic events as the suspension of the Kuwaiti constitution in 1986 and the invasion by Iraq in 1990 occasioned major shifts in the course of the democracy movement. The current running through virtually all of the nation's political drama is the monolithic Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), used by the government as an instrument of economic strength to safeguard sovereignty in the absence of military might.

Freedom in the World 2018
Freedom in the World 2018

Author: Freedom House

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-01-31

Total Pages: 1265

ISBN-13: 1538112035

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Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

Electoral Management Design
Electoral Management Design

Author: Alan Wall

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13:

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Building trust and professionalism in the management of electoral processes remains a major challenge for Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs), institutions and/or bodies responsible for managing elections. The 'credibility gap' - the diminished public confidence in the integrity and diligence for many electoral institutions and their activities - is a common problem for EMBs around the world. Many EMBs face basic design questions as they seek to work better: how should EMBs be structured to ensure that they can act independently? How do EMBs relate to stakeholders such as the media, political parties and donors? How can EMBs evaluate their performance and use experience to build sustainable elections? "The Electoral Management Design Handbook" is written for electoral administrators, electoral administration designers and other practitioners involved in building professional, sustainable and cost-effective electoral administrations which can deliver legitimate and credible free and fair elections. It is a comparative study that shares best practices and know-how from around the world on financing, structuring and evaluation of Electoral Management Bodies

Companion to Indian Democracy
Companion to Indian Democracy

Author: Peter Ronald deSouza

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2021-11-11

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1000461580

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This book presents a comprehensive overview of the contemporary experiences of democracy in India. It explores the modes by which democracy as an idea, and as a practice, is interpreted, enforced, and lived in India’s current political climate. The book employs ‘case studies’ as a methodological vantage point to evolve an innovative conceptual framework for the study of democracy in India. The chapters unpack a diverse range of themes such as democracy and Dalits; agriculture, new sociality and communal violence in rural areas; changing nature of political communication in India; role of anti-nuclear movements in democracies; issues of subaltern citizen’s voice, impaired governance and the development paradigm; free speech and segregation in the public sphere; and, the surveillance state and Indian democracy. These thematic explorations are arranged in an engaging sequence to offer a multifaceted narrative of Indian democracy especially in relation to the recent debates on citizenship and constitutionalism. A key critical intervention on contemporary politics in South Asia, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of political studies, political science, political sociology, comparative government and politics, sociology, social anthropology, public administration, public policy, and South Asia studies. It will also be of immense interest to policymakers, journalists, think tanks, bureaucrats, and organizations working in the area.

Patronage as Politics in South Asia
Patronage as Politics in South Asia

Author: Anastasia Piliavsky

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-16

Total Pages: 487

ISBN-13: 110705608X

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Western policymakers, political activists and academics alike see patronage as the chief enemy of open, democratic societies. Patronage, for them, is a corrupting force, a hallmark of failed and failing states, and the obverse of everything that good, modern governance ought to be. South Asia poses a frontal challenge for this consensus. Here the world's most populous, pluralist and animated democracy is also a hotbed of corruption with persistently startling levels of inequality. Patronage as Politics in South Asia confronts this paradox with calm erudition: sixteen essays by anthropologists, historians and political scientists show, from a wide range of cultural and historical angles, that in South Asia patronage is no feudal residue or retrograde political pressure, but a political form vital in its own right. This volume suggests that patronage is no foe to South Asia's burgeoning democratic cultures, but may in fact be their main driving force.

Open Networks, Closed Regimes
Open Networks, Closed Regimes

Author: Shanthi Kalathil

Publisher: Carnegie Endowment

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 087003331X

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As the Internet diffuses across the globe, many have come to believe that the technology poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. Grounded in the Internet's early libertarian culture and predicated on anecdotes pulled from diverse political climates, this conventional wisdom has informed the views of policymakers, business leaders, and media pundits alike. Yet few studies have sought to systematically analyze the exact ways in which Internet use may lay the basis for political change. In O pen Networks, Closed Regimes, the authors take a comprehensive look at how a broad range of societal and political actors in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries employ the Internet. Based on methodical assessment of evidence from these cases—China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt—the study contends that the Internet is not necessarily a threat to authoritarian regimes.