Democracies Of Unfreedom: The United States And India [Hardcover]

The United States and Indiathe most powerful and the most populous constitutional democracies, respectivelyhave more in common than is apparent from a casual comparison of life in, say, Agra and Omaha. While the material circumstances of an average family in the one city may be dramatically different from the circumstances of its counterpart in the other, the political cultures that protect and sometimes encroach upon the freedoms of each family are in many ways remarkably similar. The arrogant ambitions of one of Agra's representatives in New Delhi can likely find a match in the designs of one of Omaha's legislators in Washington, D.C. So, too, could we expect to find sincere concern for their constituents in the hearts of other political figures on Capitol Hill and in the Subcontinent. In this probing critical comparison of political culture in the United States and India, Professor Brij Mohan argues that much can be learned about the parochial roots and global expansion of representative government by studying both the successes and the failuresboth the promise and disappointmentof these two great experiments in constitutional democracy.BRIJ MOHAN is Professor of Social Work at Louisiana State University. His other publications includeEclipse of Freedom(Praeger, 1993) andGlobal Development(Praeger, 1992). He is founding Editor-in-Chief ofNew Global Development: Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare.

Preface
Introduction
The Chimera of the American Dream
The Politics of Being
Race, Gender, and Class: An Encounter with Reality
Beyond the New Tribalism
The End of a Great Society
The Mantras of Denial
The Remains of Democracy
New Caste War
Toward the United States of India
Rediscovery of India
Epilogue: A Tale of Two Titans
Bibliography
Index