Religious Practice and Democracy in India

This book demonstrates the close relationship between religion and democracy in India. Religious practice creates ties among citizens that can generate positive and democratic political outcomes. In pursuing this line of inquiry the book questions a dominant strand in some contemporary social sciences - that a religious denomination (Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and so on) is sufficient to explain the relationship between religion and politics or that religion and democracy are antithetical to each other. The book makes a strong case for studying religious practice and placing that practice in the panoply of other social practices and showing that religious practice is positively associated with democracy.

1. Religious practices, identities, and political representation; 2. The influence of religious practice; 3. Social domination: caste and political representation; 4. Avenues for the connected: civic associations; 5. Political institutions and the reproduction of inequalities; 6. Party competition, social divisions, and representation; 7. Conclusion.

Pradeep K. Chhibber is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as the Indo-American Community Chair of India Studies. His two previous books have won awards from the American Political Science Association. His articles have been published in such journals as the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Politics, and Party Politics. He is an active contributor to the op-ed pages of the Indian Express.