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INDIA, PAKISTAN, AND DEMOCRACY: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths. By Philip Oldenburg. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. x, 273 pp. US$145.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-78018-6.
This ambitious book explains why India and Pakistan have had different experiences of democracy since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. Philip Oldenburg argues that at the heart of democratic government are elected politicians able to control the bureaucratic and military wings of the state. The dominance of Indian politicians has not seriously been questioned whereas in Pakistan the military have escaped civilian control. While this is a central theme of the book Oldenburg considers carefully how democracy might be defined and conceptualised. Also, he explores how democracy is understood and supported (or not) by ordinary citizens in each country.
The book is organised in a roughly chronological fashion with the first part of the book covering the period 1947 to 1977 and the second part covering the period 1977 to 2009. This division is used because Oldenburg argues that in 1977 there was...