Law & Democracy in South Asia
Call for Papers
Deadline for expressions of interest: 15 August 2024
Deadline for paper proposals: 15 September 2024
The law can play an important role in the creation, sustenance, and protection of constitutional democracy. It creates institutions, processes and norms by which institutions and other actors engage with each other, and it protects their functioning by way of prohibitions and penalties on conduct that can threaten democracy. In the same vein, the law can also destroy constitutional democracy. It can weaken the courts, opposition, guarantor institutions and so on, and effect alterations in processes and norms.
How has the law - whether legislative, executive or judge-made - sustained and protected structures of constitutional democracy in the South Asian region? Conversely, how has the law weakened or eviscerated structures of constitutional democracy in the South Asian region? In South Asia, these questions cut across many themes, such as the role of institutions and actors (the political executive, bureaucracy, military, guarantor institutions and so on), relationships between the union and state governments, and relationships between the government and the people (elections, political parties, candidature, delimitation of constituencies, and election schedules), to name a few.
The MK Nambyar SAARC Law Centre for Advanced Legal Studies at the Nalsar University of Law proposes to produce papers across South Asian countries looking at these questions across themes. We invite contributions that respond to these questions from early career scholars (masters or doctoral candidates) based in SAARC and other South Asian countries.
The papers are expected to make a thick description of the law and legal manoeuvres relevant to the State, on any particular institution or set of norms. The goal is to first understand each South Asian state on its own terms, in context of its particular history and socio-political milieu. Each paper is required to be no more than 10000 words including footnotes. The Centre proposes to bring out a volume of selected papers and other invited papers in a peer reviewed volume.
To apply
Please send an email to [email protected]:
- With an expression of interest (of no more than 300 words) indicating the South Asian state, the proposed set of laws, the theme you have chosen to study, and why, with a copy of your resume by or before 15 August 2024,
- With a paper proposal (of no more than 800 words) by or before 15 September 2024,
- clearly stating your research questions, hypothesis, and structure of arguments in simple language,
- a list of references to support your proposal.
Selected participants will be informed by 15 October 2024.
Limited financial support by way of research grants will be available on demonstrated need and merit.
Monthly seminars
Monthly seminars will be conducted by the Centre to discuss the selected participants’ works in progress. The aim of these monthly seminars will be to provide guidance and feedback to each other, with the support of the Centre’s Chair, Retd. Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Director, Professor Vasanthi and other staff of the Centre.
Those who are able to produce a short paper of about 5000 words by 15 January 2025 will be invited to send in full papers of no more than 10000 words for the final workshop by 15 March 2025.
Workshop
A workshop will be held around May 2025 for all the selected participants to discuss their papers. Each participant will be assigned a discussant, an academic in the field invited by the Centre, who will share in depth feedback on the participant’s paper. The discussant will lead the discussion on each paper, after which the other participants will be invited to share their feedback.
Please note that selected papers will be shared with all participants in advance. Participants will be expected to read all the papers prior to attending the workshop. Participation in all sessions of the workshop will be required. Further details on the logistics of the workshop will be provided by December 2024.