This volume examines the complex interplay of geopolitics, electoral politics, and representative governance across South, Southeast, West, and Central Asia through an intersectional lens. Analyzing electoral developments in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, it explores diverse political systems ranging from consolidated democracies to hybrid regimes and entrenched authoritarian states. With many of these countries having held national elections in 2024, the volume offers timely insights into how electoral systems, majoritarian, proportional, and hybrid, mediate governance, legitimacy, and citizen participation. It interrogates the role of elections in enabling democratic representation while exposing how identity politics, majoritarianism, and systemic exclusion continue to shape outcomes. Combining macro and micro perspectives, the volume provides grounded, comparative analyses of Asias political trajectories and will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, international relations, area studies, and electoral politics.
Chapter 1: Elections, Democracy, and Geopolitics: The Enduring Dilemmas
in Pakistan.
Chapter 2: From Guided to Patronage to Clientele to Vigilante
Democracy: Cross-Currents of Islamization, Dynasticism, and Hope in
Contemporary Indonesia.
Chapter 3: The Fall of Democracy: Subversion of the
Electoral Process and the Rise of the Military in Myanmar: Retrospecting the
legacy of U Nu and Ne Win.
Chapter 4: Decoding democracy and electoral
politics in India: Between empowerment, entitlement and the politics of
populism.
Chapter 5: Democracy in Malaysia: Electoral Politics in a
Polarising State.
Chapter 6: Electoral Dynamics in Bangladesh: From
Independence to Democratic Chaos (19712024).
Chapter 7: Electoral politics
in the Maldives amid shifting Asian geopolitics.
Chapter 8: Nepals
Democratic Transition: Electoral Reforms, Majoritarianism and Geopolitics.-
Chapter 9: Elections in Sri Lanka: Identity, Systems, and Geopolitics.-
Chapter 10: Elections in Uzbekistan: Steady Transformation in Slow Motion.-
Chapter 11: Dance of democracy in the Himalayan kingdom The 2024 elections
in Bhutan.
Chapter 12: Elections as anchor for survival of Taiwanese Power
elite.
Chapter 13: Symbolism, Rhetoric, and Elections: Decoding the Turkish
Political Landscape.
Chapter 14: Deconstructing Electoral Democracy: Israel
as a Case Study.
Jhumpa Mukherjee (M. A (Gold Medalist), and Ph. D) is Associate Professor and Head of the Postgraduate and Research Department of Political Science at St. Xaviers College, Kolkata.
Priya Singh is the Associate Director and Programme Coordinator at Asia in Global Affairs (AGA), Kolkata. She has been a Fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok.
Anita Sengupta is currently Director, Asia in Global Affairs, Kolkata. She has been Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi and Director, Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata.
