When Rebels Become Stakeholders
Democracy, Agency and Social Change in India
- Subrata K Mitra - Heidelberg, Germany
- V B Singh - Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India
Campaigns & Elections
The authors have used the public opinion data from three national surveys of the Indian electorate held in 1971, 1996 and 2004 to focus on the political understanding of India’s voters and their leaders. While agency is a much-discussed theme in contemporary social sciences, connecting the rationality of ordinary men and women to explain electoral participation and rapid structural change in the lives of people of this country is specific to this study. This book argues that the cohabitation of democracy and social change in India is not merely incidental or coincidental; rather the two are institutionally linked in a manner that is fundamentally causal, to the extent that the weakening of the one renders the other ineffective.
This book would be of interest to researchers and scholars of political science, international relations, democracy, Indian politics, political analysts, sociology, development studies, journalism, comparative politics and public administration.
It is a stimulating work, quantitatively ambitious, and at the same time attempting to accommodate space for the opinions and values of ordinary people.
The authors must get full marks for trying their best for a remarkably comprehensive exposition of the complexity of Indian democracy from the CSDS survey findings.
The book is a celebration of political skills of India’s voters and their leadership….. Thematically, this book is, perhaps, the first of its kind and that adds to its significance as well as importance, especially for students of Indian democracy and of comparative politics.
Opinions, attitudes and values of ordinary people form the basis of this book. When Rebels Become Stake Holders has been written keeping in mind the students of Indian democracy, as also of comparative politics. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of political science, international relations, democracy, Indian politics, political analysis, sociology, development studies, journalism, comparative politics and public administration.
When Rebels Become Stakeholders explores the agency of ordinary men and women in the making of democratic and orderly social change in India…Drawing on the rich empirical base of the national surveys, the volume provides the missing links in terms of the casual link that ‘transforms rebels into stakeholders’.
