Abstract
Unlike the relatively more evolved political culture of Western democracies, the Indian democratic phenomenon is still very much on the anvil. In shaping it, the traditional norms of private and public conduct have played as great a part as the egalitarian norms implicit in democratic ideology. Moreover, the different age-groups, influenced by circumstances prevailing during their entry into the labour force and the acquisition of voting status, tend to adopt differentiated perspectives and standards in evaluating the conduct of men in public life and the performance of institutions, and in the identification of issues. Such perspectives and standards reflect a blend of the traditional and democratic norms on the one hand, and the imprints of the formative years of various generations on the other. In this chapter I shall make use of the concept of generations in order to throw light on the different generational perspectives on the functioning of democratic institutions in India.
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Notes
David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain ( London: Macmillan, 1969 ) p. 65.
See Bernard R. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee, Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, fifth impression 1966) p. 302. My italics.
For the concept of generation and its specific uses see the following: David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain; F. G. Greenstein, Children and Politics ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965 );
M. Benny, A. P. Gray and R. H. Pear, How People Vote ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956 );
Robert McKenzie and Allan Silver, Angels in Marble ( London: Heinemann, 1968 );
S. N. Eisenstadt, From Generation to Generation ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956 );
S. M. Lipset, Political Man ( London: Heinemann, 1960 );
Bennet M. Berger, ‘How long is a Generation?’ British Journal of Sociology, vol. 11 (1960);
Maurice Zetlin, op. cit.; M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi, ‘The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child’ American Political Science Review, vol. 62 (March 1968);
Marvin Rintala, ‘A Generation in Politics: A Definition’ Review of Politics, vol. 25 (October 1963);
Neal R. Cutler, ‘Generation, Maturation, and Party Affiliation: A Cohort Analysis’ Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 33 (1969);
Julian Marias and Marvin Rintala, ‘Generations’, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 6; and Joseph R. Gusfields, ‘The Problem of Generations in an Organizational Structure’, Social Forces, vol. 35 (1956–7).
See in this connection S. M. Lipset’s ‘Students and Politics in Comparative Perspective’, Daedalus (Winter 1968 ) p. 3.
See Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1948 ) p. 25.
See Edward Shils, ‘Indian Students: Rather Sadhus than Philistines’ in Philip Altbach (ed.), Turmoil and Transition, ( New York: Basic Books, 1968 ) p. 91.
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© 1979 A. H. Somjee
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Somjee, A.H. (1979). The Three Electoral Generations. In: The Democratic Process in a Developing Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16158-4_3
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