Studies in Indian Politics

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Latest documents

• Book review: Mrinal Pande. The Journey of Hindi Language Journalism in India: From Raj to Swaraj and Beyond

  Mrinal Pande. The Journey of Hindi Language Journalism in India: From Raj to Swaraj and Beyond. Orient BlackSwan, 2022; 176 pp., ₹1195.

• Middle-class Populism: Political Inequalities and Populist Appeal in India

  Populist appeals resonate in contemporary India because of political inequalities. These inequalities persist because political parties are stuck in a reciprocity trap that favours local elites, who provide the party with financial support and resources. This reciprocity trap not only perpetuates political inequalities but also leads to the systematic marginalization of the poor by political parties who remain less receptive to populist appeals by a political leader. This article shows that the middle class, not the poor, were more receptive to populist messages in the 2024 elections. Even though Modi remained immensely popular, the middle classes found Rahul Gandhi’s populist message more compelling. The analysis is based on the pre-and post-election surveys from 2024 and other NES surveys.

• Book review: Christopher Clary, The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia

  Christopher Clary, The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia. Oxford University Press, 2022, 315 pp., ₹895.

• The Need for Classroom Ethnographies
• Youth Vote in 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

  In the 2019 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoyed a significant appeal among the youth. However, in 2024, the stakes completely changed and the party ended up losing significant seats. This article explores political participation of youth in 2024 Lok Sabha elections and focuses on the central question: Is the youth still attracted to the BJP? Using data from National Election Study (NES), the article discusses how the youth have voted and the reasons behind their voting choice. The findings reveal that despite extensive efforts of political parties in carving out a youth constituency, none were truly successful.

• Pocketbook Voting in India’s 18th Parliamentary Elections (2024)

  The economic theory of voting has long remained a cornerstone in the study of voting behaviour, especially in economically developed democracies. At the heart of it is the assumption that economic contexts shape voting choice and influence electoral outcomes as management of the economy is an important function of governments and that citizens hold elected representatives accountable for the nation’s as well as family’s economic situation. Voters support ruling party candidates when they think the incumbent government has delivered on the economic front—creation of employment opportunities, keeping price of essential goods and services under control, rise in income across social layers and so on. In India, much of the analysis of voting behaviour is focused on shifting allegiance of support across social constituencies—particularly caste and religion. Economic factors of voting choices have received little attention to the extent as if they do not matter. However, analysis of NES (2024) data suggests that economic factors swayed a significant chunk of voters and thus influenced the final electoral outcomes. Anchored in economic theoretical context of voting behaviour, this article particularly examines whether there was pocketbook voting and whether it influenced the electoral outcomes of the 18th general election to Lok Sabha (2024). The findings show that pocketbook voting had significant and substantial effect on political preference.

• The Practice of International Relations Discipline in India: Obstacles and Challenges

  The practice of International Relations (IR) in India dates back to the 1950s and the establishment of the Indian School of International Studies (ISIS). Despite an early start, IR in India struggled to establish itself as a discipline due to domestic and institutional issues. Prominent criticisms of Indian IR include a lack of methodological rigour, an absence of theory, and low contributions to high-ranking journals. While engagement with questions of post-colonialism and decolonization is not new to IR, its impact on India continues to be limited. This essay explores the issues and challenges associated with the practice of IR in India by taking a de-parochial and decolonial outlook. I argue that IR in India developed as a received discourse from the West with little to no engagement with India’s past, statist assumptions, and imperial underpinnings of the discipline.

• Book review: Ruchi Chaturvedi, Violence of Democracy: Interparty Conflict in South India

  Ruchi Chaturvedi, Violence of Democracy: Interparty Conflict in South India. Orient BlackSwan, 2023, 250 pp., ₹1125.

• The Politics of Social Welfare: The BJP and the Discerning Voter

  Voting studies tell us that voters reward incumbents who take care of the economic self-interest of voters. However, is the relationship between services and votes simple and straightforward? Are there conditions when welfare provisioning does not convert into votes for the incumbent? Data from the National Election Studies 2024 appears to suggest that voters are discerning and concerned about access issues when it comes to welfare delivery. Voters do not cast their votes only on whether they received private (welfare) benefits but also consider factors such as their experience and well-being while accessing those goods and services. Examining the relationship between welfare services and voting, the article demonstrates that individual-level processes are politically significant enough to influence vote choices between the benefits and the votes. These findings could inform scholarly studies and policy debates on social service delivery and vote choice.

• Multinational Democratic Federations: Comparing India with Multi-level Systems from the Global North

  In this article, we compare the Indian experience with that of some of the multinational and multi-level polities from the Global North, namely Belgium, Canada, Spain and the United Kingdom. We first summarize the essence of multinationalism. Drawing from our comparative examples of the Global North we then show how dominant narratives of state nationalism condition the extent to which the state can accommodate plurinational difference through self-rule, shared rule and ethno-symbolic recognition within these states, and then compare and contrast this with the Indian experience. Despite the stickiness of elite narratives on the meaning of the state during state formation and democratization, we highlight the ability of electoral competition to push multi-level politics into a more accommodative or majoritarian direction. We illustrate this with reference to India including the 2024 General Election Outcome.

Featured documents

• What Do Preambles Do? A Study of Constitutional Intent and Reality

  ‘We, the people’ is the most popular phrase from the constitutions. In spite of the fact that the number of countries including preamble as part of their constitution has been on the rise, preambles have received scant attention in academia. The importance of preambles has been established in...

• Youth Vote in 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

  In the 2019 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoyed a significant appeal among the youth. However, in 2024, the stakes completely changed and the party ended up losing significant seats. This article explores political participation of youth in 2024 Lok Sabha...

• Age and Party Choice: Generational Shift in India

  India is in the throes of a massive demographic turn. People born and brought up after 1986 constitute the bulk of the population. Studies elsewhere show that generational replacement transforms societies and can play a key role in changing the political attitudes and behaviour of the electorate....

• Parties, Civil Society and Democratic Deepening: Comparing India, Brazil and South Africa

  Despite being among the most successful democracies in the Global South, India, Brazil and South Africa have all recently experienced democratic crises. I argue that these democratic crises result from the formation of social coalitions that have been willing to subvert democratic institutions and...

• Election Survey Questions and Possibilities
• The Politics of Social Welfare: The BJP and the Discerning Voter

  Voting studies tell us that voters reward incumbents who take care of the economic self-interest of voters. However, is the relationship between services and votes simple and straightforward? Are there conditions when welfare provisioning does not convert into votes for the incumbent? Data from the ...

• The BJP’s Welfare Schemes: Did They Make a Difference in the 2019 Elections?

  In this article, we use data from the 2019 NES post-poll survey to assess the impact of BJP’s welfare schemes on voting behaviour. We demonstrate that compared to earlier elections, voters are more likely to give credit to the central government as opposed to state governments or local politicians...

• Unpacking Public Satisfaction: An Analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

  Voters’ perception of how satisfied they are with the work of the incumbent government is decisive for their voting decision, with satisfaction in most cases leading to support for the incumbent government and dissatisfaction leading to votes against it. This article is not about exploring the...

• Content Analysis of Digital Text and Its Applications
• Shaping of the Woman Constituency in Indian Elections: Evidence from the NES Data

  This article studies the patterns of women’s vote in the Lok Sabha elections in India in 2024. It draws upon the National Election Studies (NES) data of 2024 and of previous years to address three key questions related to women’s vote in Indian elections. The first is about the extent of Indian...