The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them

With Amogh Dhar Sharma (Oxford University) 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. Amogh Dhar Sharma 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, The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them, 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.