Democratic Dynasties

State, Party, and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics

Kanchan Chandra

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781107123441
• eBook ISBN:
  9781316592809
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Dynastic politics, usually presumed to be the antithesis of democracy, is a routine aspect of politics in many modern democracies. This book introduces a new theoretical perspective on dynasticism in democracies, using original data on twenty-first-century Indian parliaments. It argues that the roots of dynastic politics lie at least in part in modern democratic institutions - states and parties - which give political families a leg-up in the electoral process. It also proposes a rethinking of the view that dynastic politics is a violation of democracy, showing that it can also reinforce some aspects of democracy while violating others. Finally, this book suggests that both reinforcement and violation are the products, not of some property intrinsic to political dynasties, but of the institutional environment from which those dynasties emerge.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Epigraph
• Tabel of contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• List of acronyms
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 Democratic dynasties: state, party, and family in contemporary Indian politics
• 2 The ‘‘old regime’’ confronts democracy
• 3 A sign of backwardness? Where dynastic leaders are elected in India
• 4 Dynasticism across Indian political parties
• 5 Women, dynasties, and democracy in India
• 6 Disadvantaged groups, reservation, and dynastic politics
• 7 Why ‘‘Forward Castes’’ have a dynastic advantage: intra-party politics and co-ethnic favoritism
• 8 Dynasty and ‘‘paths to power’’
• Appendix: Dataset on dynasticism among Indian MPs 2004-14
• Index