India is one of the most diverse countries of the world but operates with a majoritarian Westminster system and simple plurality, albeit also with a federal system. It was eventually coded as consociational by Arend Lijphart (1996) but this coding was questioned by authors such as Wilkinson (2000) and Adeney (2002). This paper assesses the nature of both formal and informal power sharing in India over its 70 years of independence, and questions whether the increasing electoral success of Hindu nationalism and the increasing acceptance of ethnic majoritarianism poses a threat to Indian democracy.

About the presenter:

Professor Katharine Adeney is Director of the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies (IAPS), and joined the School in 2013, having previously held positions at Sheffield, Balliol College, Oxford and the LSE. Her principal research interests include: the countries of South Asia, especially India and Pakistan; ethnic conflict regulation and institutional design; the creation and maintenance of national identities; the politics of federal states, and democratisation in South Asia. Until April 2018 she was co-editor of Government and Opposition (Cambridge) and is co-editor of the new Palgrave Series on the Politics of South Asia. She is a member of the UK Politics and International Studies Research Excellence Framework Assessment Panel for REF2021. You can follow her @katadeney