000			01885nam a2200205Ia 4500
999			_c212933 _d212933
005			20220312201225.0
008			200208s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a9780195689372
082			_a321.4 STA
245		0	_aState of democracy in South Asia: a report
260			_aNew Delhi
260			_bOxford University Press
260			_c2008
300			_a302p.
365			_b595
365			_dRS
520			_aThis report seeks to shift the locus of discourse on democracy away from the global North to 'most of the world. It does so by examining democratic experience in South Asia-a region marked by poverty, illiteracy, complex diversities, and multiple and overlapping structures of social hierarchy-and by daring to ask not just what democracy has done to South Asia but also what South Asia has done to democracy. Based on the first-ever social scientific survey of political opinions and attitudes across the five countries in the region-Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka-the report offers a fresh analysis of the promise of democracy for the ordinary people, its institutional slippages, obstacles in its functioning, and its mixed outcomes. The report combines public opinion data with expert assessment, case studies, and dialogue with democracy activists to come up with some big ideas, such as: South Asians have transformed the idea of democracy by infusing it with new meanings . The experience of democracy in this region defies conventional notions of preconditions and outcomes of democracy. Deviation from the received model of democracy is often a source of strength. Politics is still vibrant and invites a high degree of interest and involvement. Political experience matters more than inherited identities like religion and ethnicity in shaping peoples' orientations to democracy.
650			_aDemocracy
942			_cB _2ddc