Overview

This volume examines the complex interplay of geopolitics, electoral politics, and representative governance across South, Southeast, West, and Central Asia through an intersectional lens. Analyzing electoral developments in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, it explores diverse political systems ranging from consolidated democracies to hybrid regimes and entrenched authoritarian states.

With many of these countries having held national elections in 2024, the volume offers timely insights into how majoritarian, proportional and hybrid electoral systems mediate governance, legitimacy and citizen participation. It interrogates the role of elections in enabling democratic representation while exposing how identity politics, majoritarianism, and systemic exclusion continue to shape outcomes.

Combining macro and micro perspectives, the volume provides grounded, comparative analyses of Asia’s political trajectories and will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, international relations, area studies, and electoral politics.