Representation from Below : The Grassroots Origins of Women's Political Power in India

This book is for readers interested in parties, gender, and local politics. It examines how women in local politics built grassroots party organizations and leveraged gendered constraints to transform Indian democracy. It demonstrates that women's political inclusion is a source of organizational capacity that reshapes parties.

After decades on the sidelines, women are now central to India's political and development agenda. Representation from Below traces this transformation away from the halls of power toward women's inclusion in local politics and their reordering of party organization. Drawing on fieldwork, survey data, and natural experiments, the book shows how women in local politics built grassroots chapters of women's party wings and recruited other women into them, expanding parties' organizational capacity to mobilize women voters. As women became electorally consequential, party elites adapted, reshaping policies and opening pathways to higher office. Challenging views that clientelist parties or patriarchal norms block women's agency, the book demonstrates how gendered constraints became sources of leverage over parties. The book expands how we understand women's political inclusion-not only as a matter of legitimacy or representation-but as a source of organizational capacity that reshapes who parties mobilize and who they ultimately serve.