This volume addresses the current configuration of democratic politics in South Asia from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The essays seek to examine the larger questions of how democratic values are embedded in social and political institutions, and how localised and everyday political values inform the multiple ways in which democracy is understood and practised. One of the strengths of this collection is the fact that it does not seek to provide answers to these questions from within one academic discipline only, but rather brings together scholars with backgrounds in a variety of social science disciplines and the humanities.

1. Introduction ? Stig Toft Madsen, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Uwe Skoda; 2. Why Did India Become a Democracy and Why Did It Remain Democratic? A Survey of the Literature and Some Comments to the Scholarly Debate ? Jørgen Dige Pedersen; 3. Democracy in Bangladesh: A Village View ? Arild Engelsen Ruud; 4. Ajit Singh s/o Charan Singh ? Stig Toft Madsen; 5. A Princely Politician in an Indigenized Democracy: A Raja and His Electoral Situation in Rural Orissa 2004 ? Uwe Skoda; 6. A Political Breakthrough for Irrigation Development: The Congress Assembly Campaign in Andhra Pradesh in 2003-2004 ? Pamela Price; 7. Congress Factionalism Revisited: West Bengal ? Kenneth Bo Nielsen; 8. Nepal: Governance and Democracy in a Frail State ? Neil Webster; 9. Entanglement of Politics and Education in Sri Lanka ? Birgitte Refslund Sørensen; 10. Shifting Between the Local and Transnational: Space, Power and Politics in War-Torn Sri Lanka ? Cathrine Brun and Nicholas Van Hear; 11. Domestic Roots of Indian Foreign Policy ? Walter Andersen; 12. Political Practice and Post-Islamism in Pakistan ? Thomas Gugler