Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

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).

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.

• Introduction – Autocratization in South Asia 1. Autocratization in South Asia, Sandra Grahn, Staffan I. Lindberg and Sten WidmalmPart 1 India – Building an ethnic state?2. Neo-Authoritarianism in India under Narendra Modi: Growing Force or Critical Discourse?, Devin K. Joshi3. Prefiguring Alternatives to Autocratization: Democratic Dissent in Contemporary India, Amrita Basu4. Autocratization in Kashmir, Šumit Ganguly5. Re-positing Gender in the New Nationalist Paradigm, Dinoo Anna Mathew6. Autocratic environmental governance in India, Anwesha Dutta and Kenneth Bo Nielsen7. Living Dangerously: The Heartland Heralds the New Communal-Authoritarian Model of Indian Democracy, Zoya Hasan8. Hindu Nationalist Statecraft and Modi’s Authoritarian Populism, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Alf Gunvald Nilsen9. India’s inexorable path to autocratization: Looking beyond Modi and the populist lens, Soundarya Chidambaram10. The Social Roots of the Authoritarian Turn in India, Patrick Heller11. From Hindu Rashtra to Hindu Raj? A de facto or a de jure Ethnic Democracy?, Christophe JaffrelotPart 2 Pakistan – The decline of civil liberties12. Pakistan’s Hybrid Regime: Growing Democratization, or Increased Authoritarianism?, Ian Talbot13. Religious clientelism and democratic choice: Clients of God, Aiysha Varraich14. Digital Autocratization of Pakistan, Rizvan Saeed15. A Supreme Court or a Constitutional Jirga?, Moeen Chema16. Autocratization and Religious Minorities in Pakistan, Ahmad Salim and Rizvan Saeed17. 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 Riaz19. The Decline of Democratic Governance: Protests at the Phulbari and Rampal Coal Mine, Shelley Feldman20. Disaster governance and autocratic legitimation in Bangladesh: Aiding autocratization?, Maren Aase21. Islamist extremism in Bangladesh: A pretext for autocratization, Asheque Haque22. Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh: The making of a strongman regime, Arild Engelsen Ruud23. Local Government Institutions under Authoritarian Rule in Bangladesh, Serdar Yilmaz and Syed Khaled AhsanPart 4 Sri Lanka – The resilience of the ethnic state24. Ethnoreligious Nationalism and Autocratization in Sri Lanka, Neil DeVotta25. Autocratization, Buddhist nationalist extremism and the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka, Farah Mihlar26. Global Worker Protests and Tools of Autocratization in Sri Lanka: Rendering them Silent, Sandya Hewamanne27. Militarization and impunity in Sri Lanka, Øivind FuglerudPart 5 How to comprehend autocratization in South Asia – Three broad perspectives28. Autocratization and regime convergence in South Asia – An undetermined path, Sten Widmalm29. Gravitational pull of authoritarian China in South Asia?, Johan Lagerkvist30. Autocratization as an Ideological Project: Carl Schmitt's Anti-Liberalism in South Asia, David G. Lewis