Del 16 - South Asia in the Social Sciences

When Ideas Matter

Democracy and Corruption in India

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

AvBilal A. Baloch,Bilal A. (University of Pennsylvania) Baloch,Bilal A Baloch

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Comparativist scholarship conventionally gives unbridled primacy to external, material interests-chiefly votes and rents-as proximately shaping political behaviour. These logics tend to explicate elite decision-making around elections and pork barrel politics but fall short in explaining political conduct during credibility crises, such as democratic governments facing anti-corruption movements. In these instances, Baloch shows, elite ideas, for example concepts of the nation or technical diagnoses of socioeconomic development, dominate policymaking. Scholars leverage these arguments in the fields of international relations, American politics, and the political economy of development. But an account of ideas activating or constraining executive action in developing democracies, where material pressures are high, is found wanting. Resting on fresh archival research and over 120 original elite interviews, When Ideas Matter traces where ideas come from, how they are chosen, and when they are most salient for explaining political behaviour in India and similar contexts.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-10-07
Mått159 x 235 x 26 mm
Vikt590 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieSouth Asia in the Social Sciences
Antal sidor320
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781316519837

Tillhör följande kategorier

Korruption inom Samhalle och politik
Statsskick: demokrati inom Samhalle och politik

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