The essays in the three-volume series, Explaining Indian Democracy: A Fifty-Year Perspective, 1956–2006, span over five decades of the Rudolphs’ scholarship on Indian politics. The first published essay analyses the results of one of the first random sample surveys done in India. The last argues for methodological pluralism and ‘situated knowledge’ in American political science as against the universal methodological and knowledge claims of rational choice. The essays in The Realm of Ideas: Inquiry and Theory, like those in its companion volumes, The Realm of Institutions: State Formation and Institutional Change and The Realm of the Public Sphere: Identity and Policy, contextualize and assess the democratic experience in India.

The chapters in The Realm of Ideas, the first of the three volumes, explore how modes of inquiry, kinds of knowledge, construction of categories, and historical context shape political analysis and explanation. They also critique key concepts such as political culture, modernization, civil society, and orientalism and apply them to questions of social change.

This volume will appeal to not only students and researchers of politics, history, and sociology, but also to the interested reader who wants to understand why and how democracy has succeeded against the odds in India.

‘…[with] immense scholarly depth, unwavering professional integrity and abiding intellectual empathy...Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph…have for long uncovered fresh layers of meaning, opened new lines of inquiry and ranged widely over an impressive set of topics…Putting together their writings…[is] rendering a precious service for the reading public at large. A brilliant collection!’ —Ashutosh Varshney University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

‘…the publications of Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph have contributed most significantly to the widening of horizons in the field of Indian studies and deepening our understanding of traditional institutions and ongoing processes of adaptation and innovation…it is an invaluable gift to have their seminal papers made readily available in three handy volumes.’ —T.N. Madan,Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

‘Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph are greatly admired for the analytical depth and versatile experimentation with philosophical methods that they have brought to bear on the vast and complex tapestry of their scholarly concerns. These volumes provide a rich repast for political scientists, and a marvellous opportunity for the general reader interested in the changing dynamics of the Indian polity.’ —Niraja Gopal Jayal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi