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"Religious parties are increasingly common in all parts of the world. Their rise in Muslim-majority countries has been particularly prominent as they increasingly participate in elections, win legislative seats, and join governments. Since they are often founded on orthodox principles that are inconsistent with liberal democracy, the consequences of their rise and success for the prospects of liberal democratic values and practices has inspired much heated debate and discussion. This book considers a question that has been central in these debates: will the rise and success of religious parties lead to declines in the civil liberties of their citizens? This book addresses this question by focusing on a relationship that is central for understanding the politics of religious parties -their relationship with religious lobbies. It identifies the religious organizations that are actively involved in lobbying on these issues in Muslim-majority countries and outlines the policy preferences and institutional interests that motivate them. It then identifies the political and economic conditions which shape how their relationship with religious parties evolves and, when religious lobbies are able to or unable constrain the actions of religious parties. The book explains when the rise of religious parties does lead to a significant decline in civil liberties and, when it does not. To test its claims, It leverages original data on religious parties, religious party governments and, religious lobbies for all Muslim-majority countries for almost forty years and uses original surveys of political elites in Turkey and Pakistan for a thorough and original analysis"--

In Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries, Vineeta Yadav tackles the puzzle of corruption by analyzing the role that business lobbying plays in it. Combining focused studies of legislative institutions and business groups in India and Brazil with a broader survey of corruption in sixty-four developing democracies, Yadav shows how systems with powerful parties rather than ones with powerful individual legislators encourage the most corruption. A rigorous comparative examination of the connections between political institutions, lobbying, and corruption, this work will reshape our understanding of how developing democracies can both discourage and encourage bribery, vote buying, and influence peddling.

In 2023, India experienced another year of strong economic growth; it was the fastest- growing economy in the world. However, as before, this growth was accompanied by growing unemployment and inequality between urban and rural regions. Furthermore, the year was marked yet again by significant declines in the quality of democracy as the parliament was increasingly marginalized, a new law effectively handed control of the Election Commission of India to the incumbent government, and laws and government actions curbed civil liberties and human rights. One major positive development was the passage of a law reserving seats for women in the directly elected national and state assemblies. India successfully hosted its first G20 summit but also dealt with major foreign policy issues, including increasing rivalry with China for regional influence, accusations of assassination attempts by its intelligence agencies in friendly countries, and the ongoing Israel–Palestine conflict. Finally, 2023 saw the BJP claim dominant electoral victories in four out of nine states, putting it in government in 16 of the 28 Indian states.

Given their citizens' religiosity, the presence of religious parties, and the salience of religion in the politics of India and Pakistan, it is likely that politicians in both of these countries vary considerably in how religious they are. How do these differences influence their political and policy choices? We know surprisingly little about this question. This paper uses data from survey experiments fielded to politicians in India (in 2019) and Pakistan (in 2018) to examine how religiosity is correlated with politicians' risk-taking behaviors. Given that research finds they are correlated in citizens and the ubiquity of both risk and religion in politics, understanding this relationship is important. The experimental data reveal that in both countries highly religious and less religious politicians make very different choices on a risky policy decision. Highly religious politicians are risk-seeking in India but risk-averse in Pakistan. While the less religious politicians approximate rational actors, the highly religious politicians violate both rational actor and prospect theory decision-making models.

Does the experiential legacy of participating in autocratic legislatures influence how autocratic-era opposition parties and politicians want to use legislatures in a subsequent democracy? Do they learn to use legislatures to strengthen or undermine democracy? Given the frequency of institutionalized autocracies, of opposition party led post-transition governments, and importance of legislatures in democracies these are important questions. This paper addresses them by first drawing on research on authoritarian legacies, and on organizational and individual learning to identify three potential institutional lessons opposition parties and politicians could learn from their autocratic legislative experience about how to use legislatures in a subsequent democracy. It then uses data from a survey of almost 200 Egyptian politicians conducted during the 2011 elections to test which lessons parties and politicians learned by focusing on their support for protecting judicial independence from legislative interference in the future democratic regime. We find that (i) experienced opposition parties learn a democracy-strengthening institutional lesson, (ii) experienced opposition politicians learn a democracy-weakening institutional lesson, and (iii) membership in an experienced opposition party curbed the undemocratic institutional preferences of experienced politicians. Thus, authoritarian institutions leave diverse legacies among ruling and opposition parties and politicians with very different consequences for subsequent democracy.

Political families are common across many countries in Asia, including Pakistan. Politicians from political families (PPFs) make decisions with the goal of maximizing the political prospects of the entire family, in contrast to non-PPFs, who maximize their individual political self-interest. This changes the impact they have on their country. Scholars find that the presence of PPFs is associated with significantly worse development and governance outcomes, including in Pakistan. However, we know much less about their impact on political outcomes. In this paper, we use original data from a 2018 systematic national survey of about 150 Pakistani politicians to investigate PPFs' support for key democratic institutions and practices. We find that compared to non-PPFs, Pakistani PPFs are significantly more supportive of instrumentally useful institutions and practices such as free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, and a free media, but no different in their low level of support for human rights.