Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

by Sten Widmalm (Editor)

Overview

This handbook offers a comprehensive analysis of the processes and actors contributing to autocratization in South Asia, providing an understanding of the interconnectedness of the states in the region. It is an important reference work for students and researchers of South Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Area Studies, and Political Science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032151021
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/27/2024
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sten Widmalm is Professor in Political Science at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. He has carried out extensive research on crisis management, political tolerance, democracy and conflicts in a global comparative perspective. His recent publications include Political Tolerance in the Global South - Images from India, Pakistan and Uganda (Routledge, 2016).

Table of Contents

Introduction – Autocratization in South Asia

1. Autocratization in South Asia, Sandra Grahn, Staffan I. Lindberg and Sten Widmalm

Part 1 India – Building an ethnic state?

2. Neo-Authoritarianism in India under Narendra Modi: Growing Force or Critical Discourse?, Devin K. Joshi

3. Prefiguring Alternatives to Autocratization: Democratic Dissent in Contemporary India, Amrita Basu

4. Autocratization in Kashmir, Šumit Ganguly

5. Re-positing Gender in the New Nationalist Paradigm, Dinoo Anna Mathew

6. Autocratic environmental governance in India, Anwesha Dutta and Kenneth Bo Nielsen

7. Living Dangerously: The Heartland Heralds the New Communal-Authoritarian Model of Indian Democracy, Zoya Hasan

8. Hindu Nationalist Statecraft and Modi’s Authoritarian Populism, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Alf Gunvald Nilsen

9. India’s inexorable path to autocratization: Looking beyond Modi and the populist lens, Soundarya Chidambaram

10. The Social Roots of the Authoritarian Turn in India, Patrick Heller

11. From Hindu Rashtra to Hindu Raj? A de facto or a de jure Ethnic Democracy?, Christophe Jaffrelot

Part 2 Pakistan – The decline of civil liberties

12. Pakistan’s Hybrid Regime: Growing Democratization, or Increased Authoritarianism?, Ian Talbot

13. Religious clientelism and democratic choice: Clients of God, Aiysha Varraich

14. Digital Autocratization of Pakistan, Rizvan Saeed

15. A Supreme Court or a Constitutional Jirga?, Moeen Chema

16. Autocratization and Religious Minorities in Pakistan, Ahmad Salim and Rizvan Saeed

17. CPEC, Governance, and China’s Belt and Road in South Asia: The Path of Most Resistance?, Marc Lanteigne

Part 3 Bangladesh – Towards one-party rule

18. Bangladesh: In Pursuit of a One-Party State?, Ali Riaz

19. The Decline of Democratic Governance: Protests at the Phulbari and Rampal Coal Mine, Shelley Feldman

20. Disaster governance and autocratic legitimation in Bangladesh: Aiding autocratization?, Maren Aase

21. Islamist extremism in Bangladesh: A pretext for autocratization, Asheque Haque

22. Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh: The making of a strongman regime, Arild Engelsen Ruud

23. Local Government Institutions under Authoritarian Rule in Bangladesh, Serdar Yilmaz and Syed Khaled Ahsan

Part 4 Sri Lanka – The resilience of the ethnic state

24. Ethnoreligious Nationalism and Autocratization in Sri Lanka, Neil DeVotta

25. Autocratization, Buddhist nationalist extremism and the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka, Farah Mihlar

26. Global Worker Protests and Tools of Autocratization in Sri Lanka: Rendering them Silent, Sandya Hewamanne

27. Militarization and impunity in Sri Lanka, Øivind Fuglerud

Part 5 How to comprehend autocratization in South Asia – Three broad perspectives

28. Autocratization and regime convergence in South Asia – An undetermined path, Sten Widmalm

29. Gravitational pull of authoritarian China in South Asia?, Johan Lagerkvist

30. Autocratization as an Ideological Project: Carl Schmitt's Anti-Liberalism in South Asia, David G. Lewis

Editorial Reviews

The essays of this handbook dissect the trends towards creeping authoritarianism in South Asia. Even India, long a poster boy of ‘third world’ democracy, appears to be catching up with its neighbours in a ‘non-democratic regime convergence’. However, instead of merely confirming Huntington’s deterministic pessimism regarding non-western democracy, or jumping on to wide-eyed bushy tailed advocacy, authors of this important volume follow a third trajectory, based on fine grained empirical analysis and empathy with their subject, within a comparative framework. This handbook should become an indispensable tool for the people of South Asia, as well as for outsiders, looking in. Subrata Mitra, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University and Adjunct Professor, Dublin City University, Ireland.

Situating South Asia’s democratic trends in a broad historical context, this wide-ranging volume addresses a crucial, timely and policy-relevant question: why is democracy faltering in the world’s most populous region? While authoritarianism was the twentieth century’s historical norm, recent democratic improvements have faltered and even reversed. Assembling the best regional experts, this book exposes the proximate cause of regional democratic backsliding — leaders invoking cultural identities to legitimate non-democratic behaviour — while underscoring its deeper and more enduring institutional roots. It will serve as indispensable reading for regional experts, democracy watchers and policymakers alike. Maya Tudor, Associate Professor, Blavatnik School of Government, Fellow, St. Hilda's College, Oxford University, UK.

Studies of democratic decline in South Asia tend to focus on just one country. This excellent and timely volume brings together leading scholars of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi politics and society to explore, across a range of issues, what’s similar and what’s different about recent democratic weakening in the region. Indispensable. Steven I. Wilkinson, Henry R. Luce Director, MacMillan Center, Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies, Department of Political Science, Yale University, USA.

From the Publisher