Interpreting Politics

This book investigates how people construct meaning and motivation for political action. Building on Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph's seminal scholarship of India, it develops the concept of situated knowledge to argue that people's capacity to empathize and dehumanize as well as their engagement in ongoing discourses and ideational power shape their political action. The volume illuminates contemporary Indian politics by showing how political leadership can transformpeople's understandings and cause dramatic political transformation.