India's party system has undergone a profound transformation over the last decade. The
Congress Party, a catch-all party that brought independence in 1947 and governed India for …

The social cleavage theory of parly systems has provided a major framework for the study of
Western party systems. It has been quite unimportant in studying other party systems …

India has been the one major deviant case for consociational (power-sharing) theory, and its
sheer size makes the exception especially damaging. A deeply divided society with …

This article makes a strong case for differentiating the political systems of different states in
India on the basis of the balance of caste/class power and the nature of party organisation …

Indian party politics, commonly viewed as chaotic, clientelistic, and corrupt, is nevertheless a
model for deepening democracy and accommodating diversity. Historically, though …

Political parties do not merely reflect social divisions, they actively construct them. While this
point has been alluded to in the literature, surprisingly little attempt has been made to …

The assembly elections in as many as 16 states between November 1993 and March 1995
provided the first full view of India's post-Congress polity. The elections ushered in a new era …

Do political parties merely represent divisions in society? Until now, scholars and other
observers have generally agreed that they do. But Building Blocs argues the reverse: that …

Why do party systems in longstanding democracies sometimes experience sudden change?
Neither sociological nor institutional explanations can account for the swift increase in …

Theories that explain variations in party systems typically emphasize the role of political
institutions and social cleavages. Using a panel dataset of election returns from 15 Indian …