Manoj Mate’s paper, “India’s Participatory Model,” was selected from a Call for Papers for the AALS Sections on Comparative Law and African Law panel entitled Comparative Law Expanded: Methodology and Public Law in Nontraditional Comparative Legal Systems, on Saturday January 3 at 10:30 am.
The article analyzes recent electoral reform decisions in the Supreme Court of India and the Central Information Commission recognizing and expanding voters’ right to information in elections, including the right to “none of the above” voting, and transparency in party finance. The article argues that this jurisprudence presents an alternate conception of the “participatory model” based on a positive rights framework of speech in which citizens actively participate in public discourse and the formation of public opinion that affects policy-making, and in which the state provides for a broad array of mechanisms to facilitate participation in national, state, and local policy-making and governance.