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Ideology and Identity shows that party politics and elections in India are a contest of ideas. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies (NES) and survey experiments from smaller but more focused studies, the book shows that Indian electoral politics, as represented by political parties, their members, and their voters, is in fact marked by deep ideological cleavages.
About the author
Pradeep K. Chhibber is Professor of Political Science and Indo-American Community Chair for India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published widely on the party politics of India, party systems, and religion and politics.
Rahul Verma is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His PhD dissertation focuses on the historical roots of elite persistence in contemporary Indian politics. His research interests include voting behavior, party politics and political violence. He also writes regular columns on Indian politics for The Indian Express and The Hindu.
Summary
Ideology and Identity shows that party politics and elections in India are a contest of ideas. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies (NES) and survey experiments from smaller but more focused studies, the book shows that Indian electoral politics, as represented by political parties, their members, and their voters, is in fact marked by deep ideological cleavages.
Additional text
"Partisan politics is often said to have little to do with ideology in India. Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma's impressive new book is intended to bury this perception, and in the process unpack the role of ideology in Indian politics. This makes it both a remarkable and an original addition to the rapidly accumulating scholarship on India, and as such, one that is required reading for all analysts of Indian politics."- Simon Chauchard, Perspective on Politics
