When Ideas Matter

Bilal Baloch is a political scientist and visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, where he taught at the Lauder Institute, Wharton School of Business. His research interests cover the political economy of government decision-making and intellectual history with a focus on South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Bilal is also co-founder of GlobalWonks, a software company that uses artificial intelligence to deliver expert insights to organizations worldwide.

• Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. A constructivist approach to political behavior in India; 3. The Emergency and the Jayaprakash Narayan Movement; 4. India under Gandhi: Populism and partisans; 5. Checks and balances and the India against Corruption Movement; 6. United Progressive Alliance: Technocrats and transformations; 7. The politics of ideas in India and developing democracies; Appendices; References; Index.

'In this detailed account of government responses to credibility crises, Baloch sheds new light on a key element of decision-making, the cohesion of elite ideas. Focusing on corruption allegations in India, he shows how leaders' perceptions of the status and appropriate role of the state can have important implications for the ability of those elites to respond to external critiques. Through the use of elite interview and archival research-based process tracing on two key moments in India's contemporary political history, Baloch offers a compelling perspective that goes well beyond theories of material interests.' Jennifer Bussell, University of California, Berkeley, author of Corruption and Reform in India: Public Services in the Digital Age