SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Does 'Democracy' Mean Different Things in Pakistan, India, and the UK?

Abstract

What does it mean to study ‘democracy’ in Pakistan? Do the conceptual underpinnings of democracy differ in western and non-Western contexts?

An influential body of Subaltern Studies scholarship led by Partha Chatterjee argues that politicians who extend the benefits of impunity to the poor (for example, impunity vis-a-vis urban property laws for squatters) act within the terms of electoral accountability and, thus, 'democracy'. I offer a countervailing conceptualisation of democracy that combines electoral accountability with a commitment to the rule of law. I use this rule of law-focused conceptualisation to advance the study of democracy in two cases: 'patronage' democracy in India and 'Islamic' democracy in Pakistan.

To retain its meaning and, thus, its value for comparative research, the procedural core of a travelling concept like democracy must remain relatively stable, even as the values that animate state-based law-making processes in different countries (for example, India, Pakistan, and the UK) diverge.

Speaker Biography

Matthew Nelson is a Reader in the Department of Politics at SOAS. His research focuses on the politics of Islam in South Asia, focusing primarily on the politics of Islamic law and Islamic education. His first book is entitled In the Shadow of Shari'ah: Islam, Islamic Law, and Democracy in Pakistan. His current work concerns the politics of sectarian diversity in the context of Islamic education. In 2009-10 Dr Nelson was the Wolfensohn Family Member in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2011 he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.