Power‐Sharing in the World's Largest Democracy: Informal Consociationalism in India (and Its Decline?)

India is one of the most diverse countries of the world but operates with a majoritarian Westminster constitution and simple plurality electoral system, albeit also with a federal structure. It was eventually coded as consociational by Arend Lijphart (1996) but this coding was questioned by authors such as Wilkinson (2000) and Adeney (2002). This article assesses the nature of both de jure and de facto power‐sharing in India over its 70 years of independence and tracks the evolution of de jure and de facto power‐sharing in relation to four dimensions of diversity: religion, caste, territory and language. It questions whether the electoral success of Hindu nationalism and the increasing acceptance of ethnic majoritarianism has reduced the degree of power‐sharing in India.     

Identity,dignity and development as trajectory: Bihar as a model for democratic progress in Nepal? Part II. Nepal’s promise

Part I of this article traced the experience of India’s Bihar state as it shifted in the last decade of the twentieth century from a region dominated by landowning upper castes and plagued by entrenched poverty to one led by newly emergent middle castes. In a two-step process, these groups first attained a significant dignity and self-respect and then it became possible in the 2000s to turn to economic growth and improvement in living standards. Part II makes a case that Nepal, long suffering under conditions similar to those hobbling Bihar until recently, might follow a similar two-stage path of dignity and then development.     

Identity,dignity and development as trajectory: Bihar as a model for democratic progress in Nepal? Part I. Bihar's experience

Down into the last decades of the twentieth century, Bihar remained India's poorest state and one under the domination of its landowning upper castes – a well-nigh hopeless case for development in the view of most outside observers. But in the 1990s, a fresh leader gained a new dignity for the Backward castes, even as the state's poverty and corruption continued unabated. And then in the mid-2000s, another Backward leader was able to combine this societal uplift with a remarkable level of economic development. This article in two parts endeavours to make a case that Nepal, long suffering under conditions similar to those hobbling Bihar until recently, might follow a similar two-stage path of dignity and then development.     

Are European Elections Second-Order Elections for Everyone?

Second-order election (SOE) theory has been used to explain voting behaviour in European elections. Voters believe that less is at stake in some elections and some voters hence tend to cast a protest vote. However, most studies on the topic have focused on the demand side of SOEs – i.e. on the voters – and have ignored or only partially tackled the supply side – i.e. the strategic behaviour of parties – and excluded small and marginal parties (SMPs). However, SMPs may have greater incentive to seriously compete in SOEs. The 2019 European Parliament elections in Germany were particularly interesting to SMPs as there was no voting threshold, thereby increasing the chances of SMPs. To capture whether SMPs view European elections as first-order elections and therefore expend more resources than parliamentary parties on these elections, I analysed campaign expenditures and manifestos. Results indicate that SMPs act within a rational actor framework, though not unequivocally.     

Reshaping EU Attitudes? The Case of Social Democratic and Radical Left Parties in Spain and Italy

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, the issue of European integration has become increasingly salient in many European polities. The European left has adopted a different stance toward European integration, both in terms of economic and welfare‐state integration. On the one hand, radical left parties (RLPs) have always opposed a process of integration dominated by neoliberal logic; on the other hand, the social democratic parties (SDPs) have appeared as one of the main pro‐EU party families, identifying the EU as a privileged space in which to promote the building of a European social model. In this paper, we propose a binary comparison between RLPs and SDPs in Italy and Spain with a qualitative content analysis methodology. Our results show that albeit the crisis brought SDPs closer to a Eurocritical stance vis‐à‐vis the social‐Europe, this dimension along with the political integration are still dividing issues for the RLPs and SDPs families.     

India’s Experience with Remittances: a Critical Analysis

India has been the highest recipient of workers’ remittances for the past several years. Remittances have had a multiplier effect on the Indian economy and have played a crucial role in the economies of several Indian states like Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Gujarat. However, the absence of a coherent policy framework on dealing with these remittances has not only impeded their optimum utilisation but also led to certain negative impacts in India. If harnessed productively, through institutional backing, remittances can actually become viable instruments for creating alternative livelihoods and sustainable development in the rural areas of the country.     

The rise and decline of the new party: Ideology, resources and the political opportunity structure

This paper analyses the growth and decline of Taiwan's first significant third party, the New Party (NP). The NP won numerous seats in the national parliaments in the mid-1990s and received extensive media attention. However, it has shown a steady electoral decline since the late 1990s. Despite its poor recent election performance, the NP should not be regarded as a failure, as it has actually been remarkably successful at achieving its original objectives. By 2004, the KMT's policy positions had become so close to those of the NP that the NP was prepared to promote a party merger and allow its politicians to stand for election under a KMT banner. I challenge the most common explanation that the NP rose when united and fell when divided by bitter factional struggles. Instead a framework incorporating ideology, resources and political opportunity structure is employed to explain the rise and fall of the NP. I argue that when the NP faced a benign political environment in the mid-1990s, its moderate political message and rich human resources enabled the party to grow rapidly. However, after March 1996, the political environment became progressively more hostile, and as the NP's resources were eroded and wasted and the party moved towards a narrow and extremist political project, the party began its terminal decline. The space for the NP became even more limited after 2000, when party had to face intense competition from a powerful new KMT splinter party, the PFP, and a rejuvenated, united and orthodox KMT.     

The Politics of Caste in India’s New Land Wars

ABSTRACT

In this article we introduce the special issue through framing the debate on the role of caste in India’s current land wars. We draw attention to how caste consistently mediates land transfers in present day India by pre-empting, undermining, or fuelling processes of social contestation, as well as the ways in which land claims in turn shape realigned or reimagined caste identities. Based on this, we make three main arguments. The first and most obvious one is that in contemporary conflicts over land, caste matters in evolving ways that deserve attention. Second, we argue that caste and land are recursively linked categories that are produced and reproduced in continuous interaction, even as multi-scalar political economies (re)shape them. And third, that different registers of caste are articulated by different social groups in more or less overt ways as they stake often competing claims to land.     

90年代菲律宾政党的变化及其特点

步入九十年代 ,菲律宾政治渐趋稳定 ,但政党活动十分活跃。一些在全国影响较大的政党面对新的情况 ,进行了力量整合 ,政纲调整 ,也进行了新的权力角逐 ,在政治发展中留下了鲜明的印迹。随着政治和经济格局的变化 ,菲政党政治也呈现出新的特点 ,这是菲律宾政治中值得注意的新趋向。