Governing the Borderlands

This book develops a conceptual framework to better understand governance issues, and theoretical tools to grasp the variety of empirical realities observed in practice in Northeast India. Drawing from the study of cases of governance, law and institutions in India’s Northeast borderlands, it provides an exploratory space for creative thinking and to encourage a wider, deeper and more nuanced debate on governance in the periphery from a broader knowledge base. Focusing on politics, law and institutions in India’s periphery, the essays in the volume develop an interdisciplinary understanding the complexity of governance of borderlands addresses a variety of themes from various perspectives, such as democracy, politics, autonomy, citizenship, law, institutions, and border states.
The volume will be of great interest to scholars of South Asian studies, especially northeast India, politics, borderland studies, and public policy.

Durga P Chhetri is Professor and Chairperson at the Department of Political Science, Sikkim University, Sikkim, India. He also serves as Director of the University. His research foci include governance, decentralisation and federalism, gender studies, social justice, social theory and social exclusion/inclusion. He is the author or co-author of many scholarly articles and book chapters as well as five books, including Making Democratic Decentralization Work in South Asia (co-edited: 2025), Gender, Power and Democracy in South Asia (2019), Divided Spaces: Discourse on Social Exclusion and Women in India (2014), Decentralised Governance and Development in India (2012), and Politics, Society and Development: Insights from Sikkim (2012). He is on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Political Science, which publishes the high quality, cutting-edge research in all areas of political science. He is the recipient of the India’s National Young Political Scientist Award 2017.