Cost Of Democracy: Political Finance In India

Event Series: 

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - 3:00pm-4:30pm (ended)

223 Moses Hall 

Milan Vaishnav, Director and Senior Fellow, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Political scientist Milan Vaishnav will preview the findings of a new edited volume, Costs of Democracy—an exhaustive, in-depth study of money in Indian politics. Drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis, this new book opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political arteries of the world’s largest democracy.

Co-Sponsored by the Institute for South Asia Studies.