Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Burgeoning literature uses digital tools such as email to experimentally evaluate the responsiveness of political elites to requests for constituency service.
Indian state institutions haven’t kept up with the country’s political and economic transformations. Now, India’s new government has three clear pathways to deliver much-needed reforms.
The question of leadership may have successfully diverted attention away from the state of the economy, but Modi’s honeymoon will be short-lived if he does not place it at the top of his agenda.
This election confirms what has been increasingly evident over the past five years: that the BJP, under Modi’s tutelage, has constructed a political hegemony that is impressively resilient.
In Indian politics, there are neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies. Both the BJP and Congress Party are doing the election math that would lead to a winning coalition.
At the very moment when secularism is on the ropes in India, its defenders appear to have abandoned it.
Modi’s success in India’s 2019 election will profoundly affect the country’s economy, foreign policy, and state politics, as well as its future as a secular republic.
The upsurge in Hindu nationalism ushered in by Modi’s government is reshaping Indian society, secularism, economics, and diplomacy.
The ordinary voter still views Modi as a compelling leader who is personally incorruptible. Modi’s pitch this election season is simple: He needs more than a single, five-year term to undo 65 years of corruption and administrative rot.
If federalism is the glue that has kept the world’s largest democracy together, there are growing signs that this adhesive is becoming unstuck.
