TY  - BOOK
AU  - Roy, Indrajit
AU  - Chatterjee, Partha
TI  - Politics of the poor: : negotiating democracy in contemporary India
SN  - 9781107117181
U1  - 320.954086  
PY  - 2018///
CY  - Delhi
PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - Poor
KW  - Political activity
KW  - India
KW  - Democracy
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - Marginality
KW  - Social-Political aspects
N1  - includes bibliography and index
N2  - This book challenges the ongoing scholarly debates on poor people's negotiations with democracy. It demonstrates the varied ways in which the poor engage with their elected representatives, political mediators and dominant classes in order to advance their claims. Roy explains the variations by directing attention to the dynamic interaction between the opportunity structures available to the poor and the social relations of power in which they are embedded. He analyses these intersections as 'political spaces' which both enable and constrain popular practices. Through an examination of the 'political spaces' available to the poor in four different localities, Roy outlines a new analytic framework for understanding poor people's politics. Based on these observations, the book makes a strong case for an approach to democracy that appreciates people's ambivalences towards democracy. Roy urges researchers of democracy to step beyond either enthusiastic narratives - the inevitability of democracy or apocalyptic accounts of democracy's impending death
ER  -