WHEN IDEAS MATTER: DEMOCRACY AND CORRUPTION IN INDIA

Baloch, Bilal A.

ISBN 10: 131651983X / ISBN 13: 9781316519837

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2021

About this Item

Brand New. Soft Cover International Edition. Different ISBN and Cover Image. Priced lower than the standard editions which is usually intended to make them more affordable for students abroad. The core content of the book is generally the same as the standard edition. The country selling restrictions may be printed on the book but is no problem for the self-use. This Item maybe shipped from US or any other country as we have multiple locations worldwide.

Seller Inventory # ABBB-16720

Bibliographic Details

• Title: WHEN IDEAS MATTER: DEMOCRACY AND CORRUPTION IN INDIA
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 131651983X
• ISBN 13: 9781316519837
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: International Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

How do ideas shape government decision-making? Comparativist scholarship conventionally gives unbridled primacy to external, material interests-chiefly votes and rents-as proximately shaping political behavior. These logics tend to explicate elite decision-making around elections and pork barrel politics but fall short in explaining political conduct during credibility crises, such as democratic governments facing anti-corruption movements. In these instances, Baloch shows, elite ideas, for example concepts of the nation or technical diagnoses of socioeconomic development, dominate policymaking. Scholars leverage these arguments in the fields of international relations, American politics, and the political economy of development. But an account of ideas activating or constraining executive action in developing democracies, where material pressures are high, is found wanting. Resting on fresh archival research in three countries and over 120 original elite interviews including high profile political figures like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, When Ideas Matter traces where ideas come from, how they are chosen, and when they are most salient for explaining political behavior in India and similar contexts including Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, and beyond.

About the Author

Bilal Baloch is a political scientist and visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, where he taught at the Lauder Institute, Wharton School of Business. His research interests cover the political economy of government decision-making and intellectual history with a focus on South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. He studied at the London School of Economics, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the University of Oxford, where he received his doctorate in politics. Bilal is also co-founder and co-CEO of Enquire AI, a software company that uses artificial intelligence to verify and deliver expert insights to organizations worldwide. A London native, he now lives in Washington, D.C.