About

Amit Ahuja is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on the processes of inclusion and exclusion in multiethnic societies, with specific studies on ethnic parties and movements, military organization, intercaste marriage, and skin color preferences in South Asia. He has authored the book 'Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements,' which was published by Oxford University Press and awarded the 2020 New India Foundation Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize. Additionally, he has coedited a volume titled 'Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State.' Currently, he is working on a book project titled 'Building National Armies in Multiethnic States.' Ahuja holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, earned in 2008, and his research has been supported by various institutions including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is also a Faculty-in-Residence at the Manzanita Village and San Rafael Residence Halls and has received awards such as The Margret T. Getman Service to Students Award in 2015.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Political economy
• Economics
• Development economics
• Public administration

Selected publications

• A Comparison of Dalit and Upper-Caste Agitations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Anti-Corruption Politics vs. Democratic Deepening and Welfare in India

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021

  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Political economy

  Eliminating corruption is seen as a practice that supports democratic governance. We argue, however, that particular anti-corruption politics in contemporary India can damage the project of democratic deepening, because elites often deploy these politics against the representation of the marginalized. Anti-corruption politics can subvert democratic deepening by challenging as corrupt the means by which parties of the marginalized mobilize resources to compete in elections and by selectively targeting lower-caste political leaders for indictment on corruption charges within an overall discriminatory politics of deservedness. Anti-corruption governance by parties in power has serious adverse consequences for the provision of welfare for the poor, because of technocratic and centralizing governance reforms. We argue overall that while corruption is indeed damaging to democracy, elite anti-corruption politics can also represent a significant barrier to democratic deepening and welfare.

  Publisher

• Anticorruption Politics versus Democratic Deepening and Welfare in India

  Asian Survey · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Eliminating corruption is seen as a practice that supports democratic governance. We argue, however, that particular anticorruption politics in contemporary India can damage the project of democratic deepening, because elites often deploy these politics against the representation of the marginalized. Anticorruption politics can subvert democratic deepening by challenging as corrupt the means by which the parties of the marginalized mobilize resources to compete in elections and by selectively targeting lower-caste political leaders for indictment on corruption charges within an overall discriminatory politics of deservedness. Anticorruption governance by parties in power seriously hinders the provision of welfare to the poor because of the technocratic and centralizing character of the governance reforms. We argue overall that while corruption is indeed damaging to democracy, elite anticorruption politics can also represent a significant barrier to democratic deepening and welfare.

  PublisherDOI

• The Election Commission of India: Guardian of Democracy

  Springer eBooks · 2020 · 15 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Public administration

  Abstract This chapter tells the story of how the Election Commission of India (ECI) became one of the most awe-inspiring electoral regulatory bodies in the world. One of the most widely celebrated and trusted public institutions in India, it has ensured the integrity—free and fair—of 17 national and more than 370 state elections since 1947, in what is not only the most populous but also one of the most potentially fractious democracies in the world. Ever under pressure from the executive branch and governing parties to bow to demands fed by their desire for electoral windfalls, the ECI managed to strengthen its autonomy through assertive leadership by a series of Chief Electoral Commissioners following the decline of the Congress Party’s political dominance. The rise of the Hindu Nationalist BJP as the new dominant force in Indian politics provides a crucial test for the endurance of the ECI’s role as India’s guardian of electoral integrity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Mobilization Type Shapes Dalit Welfare

  2019-07-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract When the social mobilization and electoral mobilization of the marginalized occur, they represent their political assertion. Why, then, should we care about the type of collective action that mobilizes the marginalized? This chapter argues that variation in welfare provision at the state level turns on a distinction in types of mobilization. When Dalits act collectively as a bloc, this has different consequences for the social sphere as compared to the electoral sphere. In the social sphere, bloc behavior articulates demands, pressurizes bureaucrats and politicians, and monitors the quality of goods and services provided by the state. Democratic accountability is increased. In the electoral sphere, however, bloc behavior has two especially negative effects. First, it transforms Dalits into weak clients, and second, it increases the probability welfare schemes will be disrupted or dismantled with electoral transfers of power. Democratic accountability is decreased.

  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Historical Dalit Social Mobilization

  2019-07-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Much of the anticaste historical mobilization was aimed at social transformation. Did mobilization actually achieve this, though? To what extent can we measure the ideological penetration of movements among Dalits? Among non-Dalits? To what extent do we detect any behavioral changes among either group? This chapter turns to a set of survey-based and qualitative indicators to measure the effects of Dalits’ social mobilization on Dalits and non-Dalits. These indicators, this chapter shows, vary between movement (Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra) and non-movement (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) states. These factors include the familiarity with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, including the ability to recognize his picture; attitudes toward policing caste boundaries via issues such as intercaste marriage and conversion; and attitudes toward the practice of untouchability.

  PublisherDOI

• Conclusion: Whither Dalit Politics?

  2019-07-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter summarizes the key arguments related to the mobilization of the marginalized. It considers how the experience of Dalit mobilization informs a larger research agenda on democratic mobilization of marginalized groups, ethnic politics, social movements, and political parties. Dalit parties, the chapter reiterates, represent the voice of the marginalized; however, the voice comes at a price: electoral choice. The chapter goes on to argue that the presence or absence of Dalit parties in legislatures is increasingly an incomplete indicator of the vibrancy of Dalit politics, because Dalit politics is taking root in new dimensions of the public sphere: organizations in new sectors, an online Dalit public sphere, and a Dalit diaspora.

  PublisherDOI

• Dalit Social Mobilization and Bloc Voting

  2019-07-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The availability of ethnic blocs is a prerequisite for the success of an ethnic party. This chapter illustrates how Dalits’ historical social mobilization weakens bloc voting. Dalit social movements generate mobilizers and mobilization symbols that increase competition for Dalit votes at the locality-level, lower the utility of caste for differentiating among parties, shift the emphasis to material goods over symbolic goods, and split Dalit voters’ party preferences. Non-movement states were denied these electoral effects of Dalit social mobilization and hence preserved the possibility of bloc voting. The chapter concludes by reconsidering some of the explanations for ethnic party success.

  PublisherDOI

• Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements

  2019-06-26 · 26 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  "In Dalit Politics, Amit Ahuja uses the Dalit case to develop a powerful new theory of the often orthogonal relationship between social and political mobilization. He argues that when a marginalized ethnic group's social mobilization precedes its electoral mobilization, the marginalized group's ethnic party will perform poorly. This is because any political inclusion won by a marginalized group's movement weakens the ethnic bloc voting required by its ethnic political party to succeed. When Dalit social movements succeed, competition for their votes increases at the local level, which in turn lowers the importance of caste for differentiating among parties. In areas where marginal groups have a tradition of successfully social mobilization, they prefer material goods over symbolic goods...which serves to divvy up party preferences within the group. Yet when Dalit social mobilization is absent or weak, other parties do not compete for them. Without competition for marginalized voters, their voting blocs are preserved. Ironically, marginalized ethnic group parties are more likely to succeed. Ahuja also analyzes the human development outcomes and finds another irony: in the social sphere, caste solidarity improves public goods provision for the marginalized group, but in the electoral sphere, the effects are negative because such parties are weak political clients. Democratically elected officials are less accountable to them. Featuring a powerful research base and a highly original thesis, Mobilizing the Marginalized promises to change how we think about democracy in the developing world"...

• Mobilization and the Marginalized

  2019-07-04 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter explores how, given an electoral opportunity in a multiethnic democracy, a marginalized group comes to be mobilized by ethnic parties in some cases and by multiethnic parties in others. It outlines the prerequisites for the mobilization of a marginalized group. It then describes how marginalization influences the process of mobilization by multiethnic and ethnic political parties. The chapter clarifies the relationship between two common forms of mobilization—social movements and political parties—and discusses the effects of the sequenced appearance of social mobilization of a marginalized ethnic group and its ethnic party.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Susan L. Ostermann

  9 shared

• Aashish Mehta

  2 shared

• Adnan Naseemullah

  2 shared

• Pradeep Chhibber

  University of California, Berkeley

  2 shared

• Devesh Kapur

  Johns Hopkins University

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• 2020 New India Foundation Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Priz…