Author: Irfan Ahmad
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199489626
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 412
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Book Description
The Algebra of Warfare-Welfare develops a distinct political anthropology-sociology of democracy in India and beyond. It advances an original argument to understand electoral democracy as an algebra of warfare-welfare beyond immediacy and cold statistics. It makes (non) human lives - lived, unlived or unlivable - central to our understanding of democracy. Examining the momentous 2014 elections by analyzing development, gurus, terrorism, charisma, media,nationalism, rumour, truth, corruption, religion, regionalism, polarization, space, vote-bank, castes, manifestos, it brings together scholars to open up space for new thinking.
Author: Irfan Ahmad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199097534
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Electoral democracy combines the ideas and practices of warfare and welfare, where both work in tandem as near synonyms. India’s robust electoral democracy exemplifies this combination in diverse forms. Critically analysing the 2014 Parliamentary elections beyond the seduction of immediacy and bare cold statistics, this book puts human subjectivity at the centre of election studies and, through an anthropological–sociological approach, makes lives—human and non-human, lived and unlived or unlivable—central to any understanding of elections and democracy. Crafting a new, comprehensive approach, this volume looks at the 2014 elections in relation to the changing nature and forms of elections and democracy globally. Coming from multidisciplinary backgrounds, the contributors to this volume use ethnographic observations to open up a space for new theoretical and methodological reflections on the role of media in Indian elections, the shift to the right in 2014 and its consequences, the significance of traditional Hindu spaces such as the river Ganga in BJP’s victory, the role of gurus like Baba Ramdev, and the electoral choices available to and exercised by the minorities, among others.
Author: Marcus G. Raskin
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 159797532X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The United States was founded on the revolutionary ideals of liberty and democracy. In the view of Marcus G. Raskin and Gregory D. Squires, however, America's history of imperialist ventures has compromised its standing internationally and undercut visions of a free and democratic nation domestically. This edited volume reveals how a permanent war economy has hindered U.S. efforts to advance democracy abroad and has severely constrained the ability of government at all levels-local, state, and federal-to ameliorate a range of social problems at home. The editors draw from classical readings in political theory, from primary documents (including key court decisions), and from social science research to analyze the devastating effects of militarization and conflict on the everyday lives of Americans. The editors also address the connections cutting across the foreclosure crisis, rising joblessness and homelessness, deteriorating infrastructure, and the weakened social contract, all of which challenge the rebuilding of a prosperous and democratic society. Raskin and Squires conclude that only by making war an unattractive option and dismantling the warfare system can meaningful progress be made regarding the foreign and domestic issues currently facing the United States. They also offer steps to replace the warfare system, outlining the ideological and material transformations necessary for peace. Students of political science, sociology, history, and law will find this a thought-provoking, forward-thinking contribution concerning America's future at home and abroad. Marcus G. Raskin is a professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University and cofounder and former director of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than twenty-two books, including The Four Freedoms Under Siege: The Clear and Present Danger from Our National Security State (2009) and Liberalism: The Genius of American Ideals (2003). He lives in Washington, D.C. Gregory D. Squires is a professor of sociology and of public policy and public administration at the George Washington University. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of thirteen books, including There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina (2006) and The Integration Debate: Competing Futures for American Cities (2010), both coedited with Chester Hartman, He also lives in Washington, D.C.
Author: Ronald Schaffer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197711200
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Blom Hansen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009276530
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
This volume examines the phenomenon of contemporary Hindu nationalism or 'new Hindutva' that is presently the dominant ideological and political-electoral formation in India. There is a rich body of work on Hindu nationalism, but its main focus is on an earlier moment of insurgent movement politics in the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, new Hindutva is a governmental formation that converges with wider global currents and enjoys mainstream acceptance. To understand these new political forms and their implications for democratic futures, a fresh set of reflections is in order. This book approaches contemporary Hindutva as an example of a democratic authoritarianism or an authoritarian populism, a politics that simultaneously advances and violates ideas and practices of popular and constitutional democracy.
Author: Irfan Ahmad
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030855805
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
This open access book argues that contrary to dominant approaches that view nationalism as unaffected by globalization or globalization undermining the nation-state, the contemporary world is actually marked by globalization of the nation form. Based on fieldwork in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and drawing, among others, on Peter van der Veer’s comparative work on religion and nation, it discuss practices of nationalism vis-a-vis migration, rituals of sacrifice and prayer, music, media, e-commerce, Islamophobia, bare life, secularism, literature and atheism. The volume offers new understandings of nationalism in a broader perspective. The text will appeal to students and researchers interested in nationalism outside of the West, especially those working in anthropology, sociology and history.
Author: Peter Ronald deSouza
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9389812380
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Democratic Accommodations: The Minority Question in India analyses the complex story of the accommodation of claims, interests and rights of minorities in India. It aims at what India-being one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse nations of the world-can offer to other nations, particularly to the countries of Europe that are confronted with ethnocultural and ethno-religious assertion. The authors have endorsed the argument that all plural democracies-and all democracies can only be plural in the present historical conjuncture despite the attempts by regimes to make them majoritarian-must work out their own strategies of accommodation by evolving a policy matrix that is suited to the dynamics of their own societies. The book is organised along four rubrics-laws, institutions, policies and political discourse-to understand Indian democracy's distinct response to diversity. The rich and nuanced exploration of the Indian approach to the minority question presented in this book will advance the international debate on diversity and multiculturalism and help policymakers in pluralistic democracies to develop their own particular strategies to deal with minority claims.
Author: Abram N. Shulsky
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
A thoroughly updated revision of the first comprehensive overview of intelligence designed for both the student and the general reader, "Silent Warfare" is an insider s guide to a shadowy, often misunderstood world. Leading intelligence scholars Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt clearly explain such topics as the principles of collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action, and their interrelationship with policymakers and democratic values. This new edition takes account of the expanding literature in the field of intelligence and deals with the consequences for intelligence of vast recent changes in telecommunication and computer technology the new information age. It also reflects the world s strategic changes since the end of the Cold War. This landmark book provides a valuable framework for understanding today s headlines, as well as the many developments likely to come in the real world of the spy."
Author: Aditya Balasubramanian
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691205248
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The unknown history of economic conservatism in India after independence Neoliberalism is routinely characterized as an antidemocratic, expert-driven project aimed at insulating markets from politics, devised in the North Atlantic and projected on the rest of the world. Revising this understanding, Toward a Free Economy shows how economic conservatism emerged and was disseminated in a postcolonial society consistent with the logic of democracy. Twelve years after the British left India, a Swatantra (“Freedom”) Party came to life. It encouraged Indians to break with the Indian National Congress Party, which spearheaded the anticolonial nationalist movement and now dominated Indian democracy. Rejecting Congress’s heavy-industrial developmental state and the accompanying rhetoric of socialism, Swatantra promised “free economy” through its project of opposition politics. As it circulated across various genres, “free economy” took on meanings that varied by region and language, caste and class, and won diverse advocates. These articulations, informed by but distinct from neoliberalism, came chiefly from communities in southern and western India as they embraced new forms of entrepreneurial activity. At their core, they connoted anticommunism, unfettered private economic activity, decentralized development, and the defense of private property. Opposition politics encompassed ideas and practice. Swatantra’s leaders imagined a conservative alternative to a progressive dominant party in a two-party system. They communicated ideas and mobilized people around such issues as inflation, taxation, and property. And they made creative use of India’s institutions to bring checks and balances to the political system. Democracy’s persistence in India is uncommon among postcolonial societies. By excavating a perspective of how Indians made and understood their own democracy and economy, Aditya Balasubramanian broadens our picture of neoliberalism, democracy, and the postcolonial world.
Author: Supriya Chaudhuri
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000429016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
This book offers fresh theoretical, methodological and empirical analyses of the relation between religion and the city in the South Asian context. Uniting the historical with the contemporary by looking at the medieval and early modern links between religious faith and urban settlement, the book brings together a series of focused studies of the mixed and multiple practices and spatial negotiations of religion in the South Asian city. It looks at the various ways in which contemporary religious practice affects urban everyday life, commerce, craft, infrastructure, cultural forms, art, music and architecture. Chapters draw upon original empirical study and research to analyze the foundational, structural, material and cultural connections between religious practice and urban formations or flows. The book argues that Indian cities are not ‘postsecular’ in the sense that the term is currently used in the modern West, but that there has been, rather, a deep, even foundational link between religion and urbanism, producing different versions of urban modernity. Questions of caste, gender, community, intersectional entanglements, physical proximity, private or public ritual, processions and prayer, economic and political factors, material objects, and changes in the built environment, are all taken into consideration, and the book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of different historical periods, different cities, and different types of religious practice. Filling a gap in the literature by discussing a diversity of settings and faiths, the book will be of interest to scholars to South Asian history, sociology, literary analysis, urban studies and cultural studies.
