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2 - Backsliding in India?

The Weakening of Referee Institutions

from Part I - Institutional Dimensions of Democratic Backsliding and Resilience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2025

By
Milan Vaishnav
Edited by
Valerie J. Bunce ,
Thomas B. Pepinsky ,
Rachel Beatty Riedl  and
Kenneth M. Roberts
Valerie J. Bunce
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Thomas B. Pepinsky
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Kenneth M. Roberts
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

For more than seven and a half decades, India has enjoyed the moniker of “world’s largest democracy.” In addition to this distinction, the country is the most enduring democracy in the developing world. India adopted universal suffrage in 1947, despite an extremely low per capita income. Since then, the country has sustained its commitment to democratic governance despite poverty, inequality, unprecedented diversity, and sprawling geography (Varshney 2013). This makes India both an important outlier as well as an exemplar for poor, multiethnic democracies the world over (Stepan, Linz, and Yadav 2011).

Keywords

Indiademocratic backslidingaccountabilitychecks and balancesinstitutionscorruptionexecutive power
Type
Chapter
Information
Global Challenges to Democracy
Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resilience
 , pp. 35 - 53
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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