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Adeney, Katharine and Wyatt, Andrew (2004) Democracy in South Asia: Getting beyond the Structure-Agency Dichotomy. Political Studies, 52 (1). pp. 1-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00461.x White Rose Research Online [e-mail] post_1

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P O L ITICA L STU D IES: 2004 VO L 52, 1–18

Democracy in South Asia: Getting beyond the Structure–Agency
Dichotomy
Katharine Adeney
Balliol College, University of Oxford

Andrew Wyatt
University of Bristol
With reference to South Asia, we argue that recourse to the conventional structuralist and transition accounts of democratisation sustains an unhelpful dichotomy. Those approaches tend towards either determinism or agent-driven contingency. In contrast, an alternative approach that recognises the relevance of both structure and agency is proposed. In certain circumstances, human agency opens up the possibility of the relatively rapid transformation of structures. In particular, there are periods of political openness when structures are malleable, and individuals, or individuals acting collectively, are able to reshape structures. Decolonisation both constituted a moment of transition and opened up the possibility of structural change in the context of enhanced elite agency. For the purposes of comparison, the discussion covers the three cases of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Particular attention is drawn to political parties and the structure of ethnic diversity as leading explanatory variables.

Democratisation in ex-colonial states has been patchy. Unusually, India and Sri
Lanka have maintained and consolidated a democratic system of

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