Download or read book Law and Democracy in Contemporary India written by Tatsuya Yamamoto and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses legal orders, actors and democracy in contemporary India, with a particular focus on the everyday contexts and dynamics of human rights, citizenship and socio-economic rights and laws. The contributions explore both ‘institutionalization from above’, where the judiciary and legislative body aim to govern people, and ‘institutionalization from below’, where the governed attempt to expand their substantive rights embedded within their everyday lives. This analysis identifies contact zones between the two directions, which act as spaces for democratic participation and negotiation. Such a perspective should be useful to both those who are interested in Indian politics, and anthropologists and sociologists working on dynamics of laws and rights.
Download or read book India s Founding Moment written by Madhav Khosla and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--
Download or read book Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy written by Tirthankar Roy and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential history of India's economic growth since 1947, including the legal reforms that have shaped the country in the shadow of colonial rule. Economists have long lamented how the inefficiency of India's legal system undermines the country’s economic capacity. How has this come to be? The prevailing explanation is that the postcolonial legal system is understaffed and under-resourced, making adjudication and contract enforcement slow and costly. Taking this as given, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy examines the contents and historical antecedents of these laws, including how they have stifled economic development. Economists Roy and Swamy argue that legal evolution in independent India has been shaped by three factors: the desire to reduce inequality and poverty; the suspicion that market activity, both domestic and international, can be detrimental to these goals; and the strengthening of Indian democracy over time, giving voice to a growing fraction of society, including the poor. Weaving the story of India's heralded economic transformation with its social and political history, Roy and Swamy show how inadequate legal infrastructure has been a key impediment to the country's economic growth during the last century. A stirring and authoritative history of a nation rife with contradictions, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand India's current crossroads—and the factors that may keep its dreams unrealized.
Download or read book Costs of Democracy written by Devesh Kapur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.
Download or read book Democracy and the State written by Niraja Gopal Jayal and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the relationship between state, society and democracy in India over the last decade of the 20th century, by exploring how the Indian state has fared vis-a-vis its three major goals in independent India: welfare, secularism and development. In exploring some aspects of the discursive terrain of Indian politics, the book provides a narrative which bridges the gap between political theory and empirical political analysis.
Download or read book The Indian Constitution written by Madhav Khosla and published by OUP India. This book was released on 2012-08-16 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Indian Constitution is one of the world's most important and longest political texts. This short introduction presents an illuminating tour of the text, explaining not only what the Constitution says but also inviting readers to think critically about the theory and practice of constitutionalism in modern India.
Download or read book Regulation in India Design Capacity Performance written by Devesh Kapur and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the regulatory state has been a major feature of modern constitutional democracies. India, the world's largest democracy, is no exception to this trend. This book is the first major study of regulation in India. It considers how the development of regulation in India has altered the nature and functions of the state; how it is reshaping the relationship between business and the state; how it has called for the refashioning of established legal principles; and how it has raised new questions about the relationship between technical expertise and the rule of law. The chapters cover topics ranging from the foundations of the Indian regulatory state to the form of regulation across different sectors to regulation in practice. Together, the chapters reveal the challenges, promise, and limitations offered by contemporary regulatory practices, and they capture the close if sometimes fraught relationship that regulation must inevitably share with the political economy and constitutional schema within which it operates.
Download or read book Legal Pluralism and Indian Democracy written by Melvil Pereira and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a multifaceted look at Northeast India and the customs and traditions that underpin its legal framework. The book: charts the transition of traditions from colonial rule to present day, through constitutionalism and the consolidation of autonomous identities, as well as outlines contemporary debates in an increasingly modernising region; explores the theoretical context of legal pluralism and its implications, compares the personal legal systems with that of the mainland, and discusses customary law’s continuing popularity (both pragmatic and ideological) and common law; brings together case studies from across the eight states and focuses on the way individual systems and procedures manifest among various tribes and communities in the voices of tribal and non-tribal scholars; and highlights the resilience and relevance of alternative systems of redressal, including conflict resolution and women’s rights. Part of the prestigious ‘Transition in Northeastern India’ series, this book presents an interesting blend of theory and practice, key case studies and examples to study legal pluralism in multicultural contexts. It will be of great interest to students of law and social sciences, anthropology, political science, peace and conflict studies, besides administrators, judicial officers and lawyers in Northeast India, legal scholars and students of tribal law, and members of customary law courts of various tribal communities in Northeast India.
Download or read book Constitution and Parliamentary Democracy in Contemporary India written by Shivalingappa A. Palekar and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sociology of Law and the Global Transformation of Democracy written by Chris Thornhill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-21 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a new legal-sociological theory of democracy, reflecting the impact of global law on national political institutions. This title is also available as Open Access.
Download or read book Democratic Constitutionalism in India and the European Union written by Philipp Dann and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparing the structures and challenges of democratic constitutionalism in India and the European Union, this book explores how democracy is possible within vastly diverse societies of continental scale, and why a constitutional framework is best able to secure the ideals of collective autonomy and individual dignity. It contributes to an emerging comparative discussion on structures of power, separation of powers and a comparative law of democracy, which has been long neglected in comparative constitutional studies. This timely and invigorating book showcases a novel comparative approach termed 'slow comparison', counters the conceptual focus on nation-states in comparative studies and develops a broader understanding of democratic constitutionalism. In the context of the contemporary crisis of constitutional democracy, triggered by populism, majoritarianism and authoritarianism, chapters continue older ongoing debates about multiculturalism, identity politics and democratic equality that hold important insights for both India and the EU to deal with contemporary challenges. This book will be an important read for scholars of comparative constitutional law and theory. It will also benefit those studying EU law and Indian constitutional law.
Download or read book A People s Constitution written by Rohit De and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been contended that the Indian Constitution of 1950, a document in English created by elite consensus, has had little influence on India’s greater population. Drawing upon the previously unexplored records of the Supreme Court of India, A People’s Constitution upends this narrative and shows how the Constitution actually transformed the daily lives of citizens in profound and lasting ways. This remarkable legal process was led by individuals on the margins of society, and Rohit De looks at how drinkers, smugglers, petty vendors, butchers, and prostitutes—all despised minorities—shaped the constitutional culture. The Constitution came alive in the popular imagination so much that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, took recourse to it, and argued with it. Focusing on the use of constitutional remedies by citizens against new state regulations seeking to reshape the society and economy, De illustrates how laws and policies were frequently undone or renegotiated from below using the state’s own procedures. De examines four important cases that set legal precedents: a Parsi journalist’s contestation of new alcohol prohibition laws, Marwari petty traders’ challenge to the system of commodity control, Muslim butchers’ petition against cow protection laws, and sex workers’ battle to protect their right to practice prostitution. Exploring how the Indian Constitution of 1950 enfranchised the largest population in the world, A People’s Constitution considers the ways that ordinary citizens produced, through litigation, alternative ethical models of citizenship.
Download or read book To Kill A Democracy written by Debasish Roy Chowdhury and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.
Download or read book The Quality of Democracy written by Guillermo O'Donnell and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, Guillermo O’Donnell taught a seminar at the University of Notre Dame on democratic theory. One of the questions explored in this class was whether it is possible to define and determine the “quality” of democracy. Jorge Vargas Cullell, a student in this course, returned to his native country of Costa Rica, formed a small research team, and secured funding for undertaking a “citizen audit” of the quality of democracy in Costa Rica. This pathbreaking volume contains O’Donnell’s qualitative theoretical study of the quality of democracy and Vargas Cullell’s description and analysis of the empirical data he gathered on the quality of democracy in Costa Rica. It also includes twelve short, scholarly reflections on the O’Donnell and Cullell essays. The primary goal of this collection is to present the rationale and methodology for implementing a citizen audit of democracy. This book is an expression of a growing concern among policy experts and academics that the recent emergence of numerous democratic regimes, particularly in Latin America, cannot conceal the sobering fact that the efficacy and impact of these new governments vary widely. These variations, which range from acceptable to dismal, have serious consequences for the people of Latin America, many of whom have received few if any benefits from democratization. Attempts to gauge the quality of particular democracies are therefore not only fascinating intellectual exercises but may also be useful practical guides for improving both old and new democracies. This book will make important strides in addressing the increasing practical and academic concerns about the quality of democracy. It will be required reading for political scientists, policy analysts, and Latin Americanists.
Download or read book The Constitution of India written by Arun K Thiruvengadam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the content and functioning of the Indian Constitution, with an emphasis on the broader socio-political context. It focuses on the overarching principles and the main institutions of constitutional governance that the world's longest written constitution inaugurated in 1950. The nine chapters of the book deal with specific aspects of the Indian constitutional tradition as it has evolved across seven decades of India's existence as an independent nation. Beginning with the pre-history of the Constitution and its making, the book moves onto an examination of the structural features and actual operation of the Constitution's principal governance institutions. These include the executive and the parliament, the institutions of federalism and local government, and the judiciary. An unusual feature of Indian constitutionalism that is highlighted here is the role played by technocratic institutions such as the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and a set of new regulatory institutions, most of which were created during the 1990s. A considerable portion of the book evaluates issues relating to constitutional rights, directive principles and the constitutional regulation of multiple forms of identity in India. The important issue of constitutional change in India is approached from an atypical perspective. The book employs a narrative form to describe the twists, turns and challenges confronted across nearly seven decades of the working of the constitutional order. It departs from conventional Indian constitutional scholarship in placing less emphasis on constitutional doctrine (as evolved in judicial decisions delivered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court). Instead, the book turns the spotlight on the political bargains and extra-legal developments that have influenced constitutional evolution. Written in accessible prose that avoids undue legal jargon, the book aims at a general audience that is interested in understanding the complex yet fascinating challenges posed by constitutionalism in India. Its unconventional approach to some classic issues will stimulate the more seasoned student of constitutional law and politics.
Download or read book Contemporary Challenges and Prospects for Strengthening the Rule of Law and Democracy in the Midst of Anarchy and Chaos in the Indian State separation of Powers Judicial Accountability and Relevant Provisions of the Indian Constitution Revisited written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributed articles presented in First Gujarat Law Colleges Conference on Constitutional Law, held on 26 February, 2012, at Gujarat National Law University.
Download or read book The Success of India s Democracy written by Atul Kohli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars consider how democracy has taken root in India despite poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity.
