Oral Democracy
Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies

Studies citizens' deliberation on governance and development in Indian democracy, and the influence of state policy and literacy, analysing three hundred village assemblies. This title is also available as Open Access.

Paromita Sanyal (Author), Vijayendra Rao (Author)

9781107019744, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 December 2018

224 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.45 kg

'In Oral Democracy, Sanyal and Rao engage in a detailed comparative analysis to illuminate how local state capacity and literacy influence the extent to which an institutionalized system of public collective deliberation (gram sabhas) contributes to the transformation of the practice of citizenship in contemporary India. This rigorous analysis produces a pathbreaking contribution to our understanding of political culture outside the West. Their book should be widely read by social scientists who wish to better understand the broad institutional context in which the poor defend their dignity in an extraordinarily unequal society.' Michele Lamont, Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University and author of The Dignity of Working men

Oral Democracy studies citizens' voices in civic and political deliberations in India's gram sabhas (village assemblies), the largest deliberative institution in human history. It analyses nearly three hundred transcripts of gram sabhas, sampled within the framework of a natural experiment, allowing the authors to study how state policy affects the quality of discourse, citizens' discursive performances and state enactments embodied by elected leaders and public officials. By drawing out the varieties of speech apparent in citizen and state interactions, their analysis shows that citizens' oral participation in development and governance can be improved by strengthening deliberative spaces through policy. Even in conditions of high inequality and illiteracy, gram sabhas can create discursive equality by developing the 'oral competence' of citizens and establishing a space in which they can articulate their interests. The authors develop the concept of 'oral democracy' to aid the understanding of deliberative systems in non-Western and developing countries. This title is also available as Open Access.

1. Introduction
2. Discursive political culture
3. Political construction, state enactments, and citizen performances
4. The role of literacy in deliberative democracy
5. Conclusion: oral democracy.

Subject Areas: Central government [JPQ], Political structure & processes [JPH], Political ideologies [JPF], Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP]