商品簡介
This volume deals with a largely neglected but an immensely important theme of democratic theory and practiceadelimitation of electoral boundaries and its implications for political representation. The exercise of delimitation of electoral constituencies is as integral to political representation as political representation to democracy. Far from being a techno-bureaucratic exercise, as is generally seen, the exercise of apportioning electoral divisions involves political, legal, practical, and philosophical implications. How lines actually get drawn on the electoral map involve contending interests of political parties, of individual politicians, of spatially and culturally embedded groups.
The essays in this volume are penned by some of the leading specialists and experts on the subject of delimitation. They cover and address a range of theoretical and empirical questions with regard to electoral constituency and its delineation in general and with respect to India in particular. These questions include but are not limited to the following. What is an electoral constituency and how does it get defined across democratic polities? Why is periodic delimitation of electoral constituencies necessary? What are the philosophical and legal underpinnings of delimiting constituencies? How is delimitation carried out and who does it? What is the politics of apportioning legislative seats? How do constituencies get reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes? Do the ways in which constituencies get reserved stand in conflict with the notion of equality of political opportunity? Does delimitation of constituencies have anything to do with persistent deficiency of religious minorities in the legislatures?
作者簡介
Mohd. Sanjeer Alam is Assistant Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.
K. C. Sivaramakrishnan is Chairman and Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
