Dynamics of a Working Democracy: Representative Politics in a Goa Constituency

Examining the micro politics of a single constituency, this study tries to explore therelationship between the empirical and the theoretical in a working democracy. By detailingthe dynamics of electoral and party politics in the context of a constituency which suffers from a “development deficit”, the study examines the place of political leaders, partystrategy, political ideology, political rhetoric, youth participation, voter loyalty,identitymobilisation, etc, in the democratic process. To engage with these issues of democracy-in-practice the study has chosen to look in detail at the case of politicalnomadism (defections) in the constituency and to see how both, the political institutions set up to regulate it and the political calculus of parties, have responded to such behaviour. Byusing an ethnographic approach and an attitudinal survey, the study raises questionsrelated to representation, institutional regulation, and the tension between act and ruleutilitarianismin a working democracy for the public discourse in India.