Intended as a text for the postgraduate students of political science, this well-researched book attempts to track the evolution of political ideas in the recent past and their background. It brings out the contemporary epistemological and methodological debates within the discipline and social sciences as a whole, and incorporates the latest developments in the field.
Divided into forty chapters under eleven parts, the book deals with the core concepts and debates in political theory, and focuses on the state-society interactions. It tries to explain how the states, societies and cultures have responded to the emerging challenges thrown up by the social, economic and political factors, and the direction of the response. It also dwells on the impact of globalisation on current trends. Finally, the book analyses the ideas of modern Indian thinkers such as V.D. Savarkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ram Manohar Lohia, B.R. Ambedkar and Jayaprakash Narayan.
Besides the postgraduate students of political science, the book would also be useful to the aspirants of civil services examinations and the initiated readers.
About the AuthorM.J. VINOD, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bangalore University, Bangalore. He has thirty years of teaching and research experience, and has been teaching the paper on “Political Theory” for many years now. He has been a Salzburg Fellow, Ford Foundation Fellow, Swiss Foreign Ministry Fellow to the Graduate School of International Studies, and a Visiting Fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington D.C. He has written many monographs and published widely in academic journals from India and abroad. Professor Vinod has authored three other books titled Security Challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Taiwan Factor (2009), Indian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities (2006) and United States Foreign Policy Towards India: A Study of the American Approach (1999). His research expertise includes India-United States relations, nuclear-related issues, South Asian security research, Indian foreign policy and political theory. He has recently completed a major research project with the UGC on “Migrations into Bangalore City: A Study of Its Social, Economic and Political Implications.”
|MEENA DESHPANDE, PhD, is Professor of Thought and Theory in the Department of Political Science at Bangalore University, Bangalore. She has thirty years of teaching and research experience, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Industrial Development, New Delhi. She has also co-authored a book titled Contemporary Political Theory in Kannada. Since 1996, Dr. Deshpande is associated with the Project of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, as an Editor for translating the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 volumes) into Kannada, language of the state. So far 24 volumes have been published. She has been a course writer for IGNOU, New Delhi for the PG course on Gandhian Philosophy. She has published articles in various accredited journals. Her areas of specialisation are political thought and theory, Gandhian studies and gender studies.
