{"id":16009,"date":"2025-07-13T13:09:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T17:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/?p=16009"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:17:00","slug":"11-06-2025-the-backstage-of-democracy-indias-election-campaigns-and-the-people-who-manage-them-with-amogh-sharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/2025\/07\/13\/11-06-2025-the-backstage-of-democracy-indias-election-campaigns-and-the-people-who-manage-them-with-amogh-sharma\/","title":{"rendered":"11-06-25 – The Backstage of Democracy: India\u2019s Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them with Amogh Dhar Sharma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, November\u00a0 6, 2025
\n<\/strong>4 PM – 5:30 PM
\n<\/strong>121 Bay State Road, Boston MA<\/span><\/h4>\n
Please register here.<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n
Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consultants, spin-doctors, pollsters, and data-driven insights to mobilize voters. What is driving these changes? This talk explores the hidden arena of strategizing that takes place between politicians and a new cabal of political professionals as they organize election campaigns in India. It argues that the change in electioneering is not reducible to a story of technological innovations alone. Rather, it is indicative of a new landscape where ideas of political expertise, the distribution of power within parties, and citizens’ attitudes towards political participation have undergone a profound change.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Amogh Dhar Sharma <\/strong>is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. He received hisPhD from the University of Oxford, where he has previously worked as a lecturer. His first book,\u00a0<\/span>The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them<\/i><\/span>, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. Currently, he is working on a project on the history of opinion polls and psephology in post-independence India.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, November\u00a0 6, 2025 4 PM – 5:30 PM 121 Bay State Road, Boston MA Please register here. Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consultants, spin-doctors, pollsters, and data-driven insights to mobilize voters. What is driving these changes? This talk explores the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21756,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7613,7617,4210],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21756"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16009"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16063,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16009\/revisions\/16063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/asian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}