The Political Outsider

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"In this bold, creative, and beautifully written book, Roy challenges the notion that populism represents an aberration of democracy and traces its lineage to authoritarian strains in what she terms curative democracy in India since the 1970s. The Political Outsider is a brilliant addition to the literature on populism in India and in many other parts of the world."
-Amrita Basu, Amherst College "This excellent book presents an interesting and original interpretation of the rise of populism through the historical course of Indian democracy. It is written with clarity and verve and adds significantly to our understanding of Indian democracy as well as the theoretical discussion of the rise of populism."
-Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University "[Roy] illustrates the argument with in-depth portraits of selected events and institutions. Indian populism emerges in her analysis as typical rather than exceptional, a type of political movement found globally that seeks a return to an imagined healthy past when social conflicts were overridden by the unity of an imagined people."-Andrew J. Nathan, Foreign Affairs "[The Political Outsider] brims with original insights and empirical richness. On the whole, it makes a sustained and persuasive argument about the relevance of the concepts of curative democracy and outsider status in understanding populism in India and elsewhere as a style of politics embedded in a broader set of forces and forms."-Gyan Prakash, American Historical Review