Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles

Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles

Author: Kristin M. Bakke

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-06-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1316300439

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There is no one-size-fits-all decentralized fix to deeply divided and conflict-ridden states. One of the hotly debated policy prescriptions for states facing self-determination demands is some form of decentralized governance - including regional autonomy arrangements and federalism - which grants minority groups a degree of self-rule. Yet the track record of existing decentralized states suggests that these have widely divergent capacity to contain conflicts within their borders. Through in-depth case studies of Chechnya, Punjab and Québec, as well as a statistical cross-country analysis, this book argues that while policy, fiscal approach, and political decentralization can, indeed, be peace-preserving at times, the effects of these institutions are conditioned by traits of the societies they (are meant to) govern. Decentralization may help preserve peace in one country or in one region, but it may have just the opposite effect in a country or region with different ethnic and economic characteristics.


Economic Transformation of a Developing Economy

Economic Transformation of a Developing Economy

Author: Lakhwinder Singh

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-02-12

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 9811001979

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Foreword by Prof. Kaushik Basu This book traces the development experience of one of India’s most dynamic and prosperous states, Punjab, which has provided the country with a much-needed degree of food security. The relative regression of Punjab’s economy in the post-economic reforms period and slow current economic growth give cause for concern. The contributions in this book address the question of why the structural transformation of Punjab’s economy has fallen into the middle-income trap. Each investigates the policy constraints influencing the relative stagnation of the economy and suggests appropriate measures for alleviating them. By integrating theoretical constructs and new evidence, the authoritative contributions diagnose the nature of the current problems and offer practical solutions. They cover important issues such as the crisis of agrarian transition, agrarian markets and distributive justice, employment growth and transition to non-agriculture sectors, fiscal policy, external factors in economic transformation, and perspectives on rejuvenating the state’s economy.


Sikh Nationalism

Sikh Nationalism

Author: Gurharpal Singh

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-11-25

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 100921344X

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This important volume provides a clear, concise and comprehensive guide to the history of Sikh nationalism from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on A. D. Smith's ethno-symbolic approach, Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani use a new integrated methodology to understanding the historical and sociological development of modern Sikh nationalism. By emphasising the importance of studying Sikh nationalism from the perspective of the nation-building projects of India and Pakistan, the recent literature on religious nationalism and the need to integrate the study of the diaspora with the Sikhs in South Asia, they provide a fresh approach to a complex subject. Singh and Shani evaluate the current condition of Sikh nationalism in a globalised world and consider the lessons the Sikh case offers for the comparative study of ethnicity, nations and nationalism.


Sikh Ethnonationalism and the Political Economy of Punjab

Sikh Ethnonationalism and the Political Economy of Punjab

Author: Shinder Purewal

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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Closely examining how the Sikh separatist movement for Khalistan developed in the Punjab and why it turned violent, this book explores how internal power blocs within Sikhism shaped an exclusionary Sikh identity over the past 300 years. As well, the political economy perspective of the book helps explain how the interests of the Sikh capitalist farmers have shaped post-independence Sikh politics.


The Insecurity State

The Insecurity State

Author: Mark Condos

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-08-03

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1108418317

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A provocative examination of how the British colonial experience in India was shaped by chronic unease, anxiety, and insecurity.


The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies

Author: Pashaura Singh

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-03-27

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0191004111

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The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies innovatively combines the ways in which scholars from fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, religious studies, literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics have integrated the study of Sikhism within a wide range of critical and postcolonial perspectives on the nature of religion, violence, gender, ethno-nationalism, and revisionist historiography. A number of essays within this collection also provide a more practical dimension, written by artists and practitioners of the tradition. The handbook is divided into eight thematic sections that explore different 'expressions' of Sikhism. Historical, literary, ideological, institutional, and artistic expressions are considered in turn, followed by discussion of Sikhs in the Diaspora, and of caste and gender in the Panth. Each section begins with an essay by a prominent scholar in the field, providing an overview of the topic. Further essays provide detail and further treat the fluid, multivocal nature of both the Sikh past and the present. The handbook concludes with a section considering future directions in Sikh Studies.


New Perspectives on Pakistan's Political Economy

New Perspectives on Pakistan's Political Economy

Author: Matthew McCartney

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 110876309X

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This volume makes a major intervention in the debates around the nature of the political economy of Pakistan, focusing on its contemporary social dynamics. This is the first comprehensive academic analysis of Pakistan's political economy after thirty-five years, and addresses issues of state, class and society, examining gender, the middle classes, the media, the bazaar economy, urban spaces and the new elite. The book goes beyond the contemporary obsession with terrorism and extremism, political Islam, and simple 'civilian–military relations', and looks at modern-day Pakistan through the lens of varied academic disciplines. It not only brings together new work by some emerging scholars but also formulates a new political economy for the country, reflecting the contemporary reality and diversification in the social sciences in Pakistan. The chapters dynamically and dialectically capture emergent processes and trends in framing Pakistan's political economy and invite scholars to engage with and move beyond these concerns and issues.


Changing Homelands

Changing Homelands

Author: Neeti Nair

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0674061152

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Changing Homelands offers a startling new perspective on what was and was not politically possible in late colonial India. In this highly readable account of the partition in the Punjab, Neeti Nair rejects the idea that essential differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities made political settlement impossible. Far from being an inevitable solution, the idea of partition was a very late, stunning surprise to the majority of Hindus in the region. In tracing the political and social history of the Punjab from the early years of the twentieth century, Nair overturns the entrenched view that Muslims were responsible for the partition of India. Some powerful Punjabi Hindus also preferred partition and contributed to its adoption. Almost no one, however, foresaw the deaths and devastation that would follow in its wake. Though much has been written on the politics of the Muslim and Sikh communities in the Punjab, Nair is the first historian to focus on the Hindu minority, both before and long after the divide of 1947. She engages with politics in post-Partition India by drawing from oral histories that reveal the complex relationship between memory and history—a relationship that continues to inform politics between India and Pakistan.


The Punjab Under Imperialism, 1885-1947

The Punjab Under Imperialism, 1885-1947

Author: Imran Ali

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1400859581

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The Punjab--an area now divided between Pakistan and India--experienced significant economic growth under British rule from the second half of the nineteenth century. This expansion was founded on the construction of an extensive network of canals in the western parts of the province. The ensuing agricultural settlement transformed the previously barren area into one of the most important regions of commercial agriculture in South Asia. Nevertheless, Imran Ali argues that colonial strategy distorted the development of what came to be called the "bread basket" of the Indian subcontinent. This comprehensive survey of British rule in the Punjab demonstrates that colonial policy making led to many of the socio-economic and political problems currently plaguing Pakistan and Indian Punjab. Subordinating developmental goals to its political and military imperatives, the colonial state cooperated with the dominant social classes, the members of which became the major beneficiaries of agricultural colonization. Even while the rulers tried to use the vast resources of the Punjab to advance imperial purposes, they were themselves being used by their collaborators to advance implacable private interests. Such processes effectively retarded both nationalism and social change and resulted in the continued backwardness of the region even after the departure of the British. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Beyond Punjab

Beyond Punjab

Author: Himadri Banerjee

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-30

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1000800288

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This book focuses on Sikh communities in east and northeast India. It studies settlements in Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, and Manipur to understand the Indian Sikhs through the lens of their dispersal to the plains and hills far from Punjab. Drawing on robust historical and ethnographic sources such as official documents, media accounts, memoirs, and reports produced by local Sikh institutions, the author studies the social composition of the immigrants and surveys the extent of their success in retaining their community identity and recreating their memories of home at their new locations. He uses a nuanced notion of the internal diaspora to look at the complex relationships between home, host, and community. As an important addition to the study of Sikhism, this book fills a significant gap and widens the frontiers of Sikh studies. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, history, migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh studies, cultural studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide.