IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v712y2024i1p61-76.html

Legislative Capture in India: Is Democracy Back from the Brink?

Author

Listed:
  • Milan Vaishnav

Abstract

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won consecutive parliamentary majorities in India’s 2014 and 2019 elections, ushering in a period of single-party dominance that has replaced a quarter-century of coalition politics. This new era has been marked by a growing concentration of executive power, crackdowns on dissent, and rising Hindu majoritarianism. The roots of India’s democratic backsliding predate the BJP’s resurgence, but the trends have intensified in the past 10 years. While the party’s disappointing performance in the 2024 elections suggests a possible corrective, legislative capture in India will not easily unravel: The BJP remains in a commanding political position and shows little inclination toward moderation; questions about electoral integrity abound; referee institutions are abdicating their authority; and constraints on civil society endure. Given India’s outsize geopolitical importance, foreign pressure is unlikely to be decisive in reversing these trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Milan Vaishnav, 2024. "Legislative Capture in India: Is Democracy Back from the Brink?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 712(1), pages 61-76, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:712:y:2024:i:1:p:61-76
    DOI: 10.1177/00027162241307742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162241307742
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00027162241307742?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, 2022. "Hindu Nationalism: From Ethnic Identity to Authoritarian Repression," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 31-47, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Siddharth Mallavarapu, 2025. "Classical Realism and Indian Foreign Policy: Some Cautionary Notes," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 114-126, June.
    2. Ekta Oza & Philippa Williams & Lipika Kamra, 2024. "Digital denizenship: Hindu nationalist architectures of digital closings and unbelonging in India," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(7), pages 1150-1169, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:712:y:2024:i:1:p:61-76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.