Title Crafty oligarchs, savvy voters : democracy under inequality in rural Pakistan / Shandana Khan Mohmand

Published Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019 ©2019

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 298 pages) : illustrations Series South Asia in the social sciences ; 10 South Asia in the social sciences ; 10. Contents Cover; Crafty Oligarchs, Savvy Voters; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Tables and Figures; Acknowledgements; Glossary of Local Terms; 1. Introduction: Rural Voters under Inequality in an Emerging Democracy; Existing explanations of rural politics in Pakistan; The 'feudalism' explanation; The biradari explanation; The 'clientelism' explanation; The 'class and party ideology' explanation; Preliminary ideas about rural voting behaviour in Pakistan; Argument: Political engagement under structural inequality Does the landed elite dominate and control the political engagement of rural voters?Do landless voters have bargaining power vis-à-vis landed elites, and are there observable differences in this?; What explains the observed differences in political engagement?; Research design and methodology; Holding all else constant: Selecting a district; Varying levels of inequality: Case selection; Measurements and a mix of methods; Structure of the book; 2. Colonial Constructs and Post-colonial Politics: 1849-2018; Creating a 'traditional' landed elite under colonial rule: 1849-1947 Revenue base and extraction: The settling of 'Proprietary villages'Revenue expansion: The creation of 'Crown' villages; Agencies of rule: Creating Punjab's 'traditional' landed elite; The partition of 1947; Landed power and the early post-colonial years: 1947-70; Challenging landed power: The rise of class and party identification, 1970-77; Re-emergence of the landed elite as a political force: 1977 onwards; 3. Landed Power in Sahiwal: From Domination to Intermediation; Sahiwal in the 1960s: Domination; Physical layout and structure; Economic structure and relations; Sources of dependence Pattern of politicsPower and monopolistic control in Sahiwal; Sahiwal in the 1980s: Transformation; Changes in physical layout and structure; Changes in agrarian relations of production; Transformation of dependence and power; Politics: From factionalism to class; Inequality, class and power in Sahiwal; Sahiwal in the 2000s: Intermediation; Changes in physical layout and structure; Changes in agrarian relations of production; Circumscribed independence; Politics, factions and intermediation; Understanding the continuing centrality of Sahiwal's maaliks 4. Local Competition and Bargaining Power: Conceptualising Political Engagement in Rural PunjabWhat exactly is a vote bloc?; Are vote blocs controlled by the landed elite?; Inequality and voter bargaining power: A typology of vote bloc members; Understanding local political engagement: Contestation and inclusion; Contestation; Inclusion; Index of political engagement (IPE); Conclusion; 5. Bargaining with Landlords: Comparing Political Engagement in Unequal Contexts; Selecting the six case villages; Political control and cooperation in proprietary villages: The case of Tiwanabad and Badhor Summary "How does democracy empower marginalized voters under conditions of inequality? The author probes into this question grounding her research in the context of Pakistan, an emerging democracy whose voters have actively been involved in defining its political history but about whom we know very little. They turn up in sizeable numbers to vote during elections, even under military rule, prompting all kinds of contradictory stereotypes about how Pakistani rural voters behave as electoral cannon fodder. But no one has looked very closely at why they vote as they do, or why they vote at all when their political agency is severely limited by high socio-economic inequality. By using original data collected across different villages and households in rural Pakistan, this book finds that electoral politics enables even the most marginalized voters to strategically further their interests vis-à-vis elite groups, but that persistent inequality limits their ability to organize or compete."-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 02, 2019) Subject Voting -- Pakistan -- Pāṭa Political participation -- Pakistan -- Pāṭa Equality -- Pakistan -- Pāṭa Democracy -- Pakistan POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Essays. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- General. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- National. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Reference. Voting Political participation Equality Democracy Politics and government SUBJECT Pakistan -- Politics and government -- 21st century Subject Pakistan Form Electronic book ISBN 9781108694247 1108694241 9781108678209 1108678203 1108473636 9781108473637

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