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European Tribune - Indian political tamasha (Part I)
Also there is question of lessons to be drawn from Indian politics, how it's relevant for you. If European Union is more coherent entity with strong executive wing then its politics may become more similar to what is going on here. India after all in many ways is like Europe (it has the same size and her population is more than twice than EU's), it is big peninsula attached to the largest chunk of earth - Asia.
Thanks - I have been suggesting for a long time that we should look at India as a case study, but nobody else had the ability to write about it like you do.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Apr 27th, 2009 at 04:46:22 AM EST
India is really curious case. Because of her sheer size it's quite unlike anything we can see anywhere in the world, even US with two party system or Russia with effectively one party rule (opposition there is only from moribund communists who have no real chance to rule again). India has multilayered and very complicated multiparty system where it is necessary to forge mammoth coalitions of 20 plus parties. That's why if EU is more coherent entity it will inevitably resemble India, I suspect that you will be able to see very strange combinations. Also European politicians will be forced to look for friends outside their borders, always keeping in mind that pan-European ambitions cannot be realized without complicated warren of ties across political spectrum. Just now I was watching debate in Buck stops here with Barkha Dutt, she was pressing her guests with new idea - to forge Congress plus Left alliance (essentially repeat of 2004) only dumping PM Manmohan Singh in the process because of his perceived pro-American policies. One journalist, Vir Sangvi, editor in chief of Hindustan Times thinks that Left and Congress had only two major disagreements - one was about liberalization, globalization and second is about ties with US. The first question is not in the focus anymore due to credit crunch and ongoing economic crisis. So only close ties with US remain to be apple of discord. Maybe someone else from Congress like foreign affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee who is known for his warren of ties with Communist leaders will replace Manmohan as PM. Because everybody in India expects hung parliament there are not so many available options much will depend on exact numbers of MP and their perceptions. All three-four existing coalitions will not be able to cross 272 mark. So what they will do? There are two alternatives - Congress will support third front government from outside and second is Left will support the Congress from outside. Everybody loves power and Vir Sangvi think that Congress loves power (and money) more than it loves its PM, so they will dump him, will find a guy suitable for Communists.
by FarEasterner on Mon Apr 27th, 2009 at 01:34:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
FarEasterner:
India has multilayered and very complicated multiparty system where it is necessary to forge mammoth coalitions of 20 plus parties. That's why if EU is more coherent entity it will inevitably resemble India, I suspect that you will be able to see very strange combinations. Also European politicians will be forced to look for friends outside their borders, always keeping in mind that pan-European ambitions cannot be realized without complicated warren of ties across political spectrum.
Did you see my old diaries on the topic?
We're already well on the way to that. But as of today the national elections are perceived as more important than the European elections by both the voters and the politicians, as it has been since the EP held its first elections 30 years ago.

Second-order elections - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term has appeared for the first time in Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt's "Nine second-order national elections -A conceptual framework for the analysis of European election results" article for the European Journal of Political Research, in 1980.


Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Apr 27th, 2009 at 01:47:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In India also voters do not attach too much importance to national (federal) elections, they simply don't care who will be PM of the country. Anyway their local MP is not going to occupy this post. That's why they (and majority of politicians) think that locl state or municipal elections are much more important, there we can see real, tough fight. On federal level everything depends on communication skills.
by FarEasterner on Mon Apr 27th, 2009 at 01:58:50 PM EST
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