Articles by D L Sheth

In the process of opposition to globalisation, micro-movements have begun to raise a new discourse on democracy and invent political practices, expanding the arena of politics beyond the representational institutions of elections and political parties. They see globalisation as undermining and de-legitimising institutions of democratic governance and as a force which seeks to undo India's democratic revolution. This paper analyses the discourse and politics of micro-movements and their role in reinventing participatory democracy as a form of social action and political practice, creating new spaces and infusing deeper meaning to democracy in the globalising world.

State, Nation and Ethnicity Experience of Third World Countries D L Sheth If third world countries are to cope with internal problems of political and cultural fragmentation, with the forces of modernisation and, externally, with the emerging process of transnationalisation, they will have to find an alternative mode of governance for themselves which is aligned with their own histories and contemporary needs of change. While they cannot wish away either the forces of modernisation or the reality of a world consisting of nation-states, they also need not remain wedded to the text-book model of the nation-state given to them. Several modifications and improvements on this model are possible and indeed necessary. Such modifications are already being undertaken by the old, established nation-states, albeit in the light of their own experience and purposes. The new states can ignore these developments only at their peril.

D L Sheth Little or no attention has been paid to the numerous experiments, movements and organisational initiatives that struggle on the ground, in the already cramped intellectual and political spaces, to make 'development' a relevant concept, a direct experience in the lives of the deprived, the oppressed and the impoverished populations which have either been 'untouchables of development or when touched are affected adversely and become its victims.

Profiles of Party Support in 1967 D L Sheth Our purpose, in this paper, is to construct profiles of the major political parties in India through an analysis of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of their supporters. This will help in understanding the nature of the emerging party system.