@techreport{Rodrigues2014,
  type      = {Working Paper},
  author    = {Rodrigues, Valerian},
  title     = {Elections and Civil Society in India},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-10500},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-105007},
  pages     = {40},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {The analysis of the 2014 elections to Lok Sabha in India describes the results and their enormous extent with a differentiate regard to social group voting. Considering the election campaign's performativity and issues of contestation the landslide victory of BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) will be illuminated. Through a closer examination of party coalitions, the electoral system, and the leadership factor the BJP's clear victory over Congress Party will be explained. Besides the opportunity for significant economic and political reforms, the author conjectures a potential for dangerous tendencies to Indian democracy owing to such a resourceful government, which are compared with the government constraints, especially by federal arrangements. The second part of the article argues that civil society in India is composed of several layers that are distinct and overlap at the same time. Five versions of the same are significant: 1) institutions avowing secular nationalism that upholds inclusive citizenship, equality of treatment, and non-discrimination; 2) a phalanx of institutions inspired by the Gandhian idea of swaraj that are deeply vary of the state and its apparatus and envisage a life of freedom constituted around self-determining associations built from below; 3) such orientations and impulses which stress on religiously inspired values and traditions with its archetypal representation in Hindu nationalism; 4) those who highlight difference and diversity as central to Indian society and stress this fact as foundational to Indian nationalism; 5) and those who are in favour of a right-based approach to citizenship and rule of law in India. Alluding to these distinctive domains constitutive of civil society in India the paper argues that the success of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the coalition that it led, in the General elections of 2014 rested on its ability in tapping resources from different layers of civil society while making institutions woven around Hindu identity as its anchor.},
  subject      = {Indien <Parliament>},
  language  = {en}
}