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The essay deals with the role of Media in the last Indian General elections in 2014.

In democracies, innovative political institutions have opened up scope for direct public participation often in the form of talk: citizens talking to the state and mutual talk among citizens on matters concerning community development. A prominent example is the Indian gram sabha, or village assembly, which occurs in a highly stratified context. This paper undertakes a talk-centered analysis of the gram sabha with a focus on examining the oral participation of women in general and women affiliated with microcredit self-help groups who have access to an associational life. The qualitative analysis of 255 gram sabha transcripts from four South Indian states finds that women associated with microcredit self-help groups employ a wider variety of narrative styles and utilize a more multilayered structure to convey their messages compared with all women taken together. Thus, the difference is not so much in the numerical instances of talking or in the types of issues raised, but rather in the quality of participation. The paper makes an important theoretical contribution by proposing the concept of oral democracy as an alternative to deliberative democracy, and urges an analytical focus on the oral or oratory competency of subordinated groups as they participate in these important institutions.

Performer: CISAC, Stanford University Principal Investigator: Scott D. Sagan Cost: $100,000 Fiscal Year(s): 2014-2015 ; Policymakers and scholars widely believe that there is a deep public aversion to nuclear weapons. But there is no empirical evidence on the strength of "antinuclear instincts" and the conditions under which they operate in the United States and other countries. This is especially relevant in light of current debates over "red lines" for military intervention, concerns about non-combatant immunity, and escalation dangers in military conflicts. ; PASCC