When Ideas Matter

'In this detailed account of government responses to credibility crises, Baloch sheds new light on a key element of decision-making, the cohesion of elite ideas. Focusing on corruption allegations in India, he shows how leaders' perceptions of the status and appropriate role of the state can have important implications for the ability of those elites to respond to external critiques. Through the use of elite interview and archival research-based process tracing on two key moments in India's contemporary political history, Baloch offers a compelling perspective that goes well beyond theories of material interests.' Jennifer Bussell, University of California, Berkeley, author of Corruption and Reform in India: Public Services in the Digital Age 'When Ideas Matter is a deeply researched and engagingly written book. It asks an unusual but vital question: How do the ideas of elites actually shape politics and policy and their ability to negotiate the contradictions of society? But it is also a wonderful contribution to contemporary history. It compares the anti-corruption movement against Indira Gandhi, with the movement against UPA 2. It also smartly puts them in comparative perspective. In doing so it sheds fresh new light on how ideas work in politics, the nature of political elites, the shape of party structures and the future of populism.' Pratap Bhanu Mehta, co-editor of Rethinking Public Institutions in India 'Bilal Baloch makes a powerful constructivist case for the importance of ideas in explaining key outcomes and crises in post-independence Indian history, from the secular nationalist era of the 1970s, to the Hindu Nationalist present.' Steven Wilkinson, Yale University, author of Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India