The Indian Civil Sphere by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Suryakant Wa... - 9781509563814

The Indian Civil SphereAuthor(s): Jeffrey C. Alexander, Suryakant Waghmore\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Polity Press\nISBN-13: 9781509563814, 978-1509563814\nSynopsis\nIndian democracy is in trouble. A still widely popular, democratically elected leader stands athwart it, dangerously authoritarian and disrespectful of civil liberties, the independence of the courts and the press, and disputatious vis--vis organized counter-powers. Leading intellectuals, Indian and Western, write about the death of Indian democracy and the passage to despotism. Despite these clear and present dangers, this volume suggests that the death of Indian democracy has been greatly exaggerated. To understand why, we must move beyond democracy narrowly understood as a governmental form to a broader theory of the cultural, associational, and institutional life necessary to sustain it.\n\n Building on the insights of civil sphere theory, this volume presents a co.