Public institutions and the paradox of liberal democracy : a step toward heterodox political science

Abstract

Why Niger and India? Why compare two countries that are so patently different? The empirical challenge for this study was to find cases from the South that are different in terms of continental location, yet similar in terms of political system and reform policy. The difference of continental location is a proxy for the more substantial — as far as the objectives of the study are concerned — difference of historical process and its implications for our times, which is why the South-South Research Consortium, that has funded this project, has suggested that authors should compare cases across, rather than within the three southern continents.