Oral Democracy

Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-1-107-01974-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

Reihe: Theories of Institutional Design

Oral Democracy studies citizens' voices in civic and political deliberations in India's gram sabhas (village assemblies), the largest deliberative institution in human history. It analyses nearly three hundred transcripts of gram sabhas, sampled within the framework of a natural experiment, allowing the authors to study how state policy affects the quality of discourse, citizens' discursive performances and state enactments embodied by elected leaders and public officials. By drawing out the varieties of speech apparent in citizen and state interactions, their analysis shows that citizens' oral participation in development and governance can be improved by strengthening deliberative spaces through policy. Even in conditions of high inequality and illiteracy, gram sabhas can create discursive equality by developing the 'oral competence' of citizens and establishing a space in which they can articulate their interests. The authors develop the concept of 'oral democracy' to aid the understanding of deliberative systems in non-Western and developing countries. This title is also available as Open Access.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sanyal, Paromita

Rao, Vijayendra

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. Discursive political culture; 3. Political construction, state enactments, and citizen performances; 4. The role of literacy in deliberative democracy; 5. Conclusion: oral democracy.

Über Autor(innen)

Rao, Vijayendra
Vijayendra Rao is Lead Economist in the Development Economics Research Group at The World Bank. He co-edited Culture and Public Action (2004), and co-authored Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? (2012). He has published in the leading journals in economics and development studies, and he is a member of the Successful Societies Program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Sanyal, Paromita
Paromita Sanyal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida State University. She has written Credit to Capabilities: A Sociological Study of Microcredit Groups in India (Cambridge, 2014), which won an Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association. Her work has also been published in leading sociology journals, including the American Sociological Review.