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A study of ideas, their substance, origins and salience, in government decision-making during credibility crises in India and developing democracies.
List of contents
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.
About the author
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.
Summary
Breaks new ground in the study of the role of ideas in government decision-making in India. It traces where ideas come from, how they are chosen, and when they are most salient for explaining political behaviour in developing democracies.
Additional text
'Bilal Baloch makes a powerful constructivist case for the importance of ideas in explaining key outcomes and crises in post-independence Indian history, from the secular nationalist era of the 1970s, to the Hindu Nationalist present.' Steven Wilkinson, Yale University, author of Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India
