EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS ON POLITICAL STABILITY IN SOUTH ASIA

Despite high mass poverty, illiteracy, and religious and linguistic heterogeneity, the states of South Asia enjoy a moderately high level of orderly and democratic government. This contrast to other comparable parts of the world is explained to some extent by the cultural, institutional, and social legacies of British colonial rule and the orderly transfer of power in these successor states. However, 50 years after decolonization, one needs to look beyond colonial rule for explanations. The essay develops a general model based on a rational choice perspective to explain political stability through institutional arrangements. In its application of this model to South Asia, the chapter suggests that political stability is conditional (a) on the capacity of the postcolonial state to innovate new institutions and (b) on the ability of its new political elites to integrate modern and premodern political structures and values within the institutional set-up and to consult the masses periodically through a democratic political process. This model is illustrated with reference to state-society, state-economy, and interstate relations within South Asia.