Includes bibliographical references and index.

I. Introduction -- 1. Politics as Interpretation / Kamal Sadiq -- II. Interpretative Approaches to Political Analysis -- 2. Situated Knowledge, the Construction of Meaning, and Political Action: A Framework for Interpretative Political Analysis / Kamal Sadiq -- 3. Interpretivism in Motion: Discursive Institutionalism as the Fourth `New' Institutionalism / Vivien A. Schmidt -- 4. Different Way of Seeing Things: The Intellectual Legacy of Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph / Kristen Renwick Monroe -- III. Caste, Class, and the `Lived Experience' of Political Mobilization -- 5. Dominant Castes, from Bullock Capitalists to OBCs? The Impart of Class Differentiation in Rural India / A. Kalaiyarasan -- 6. Does Class Matter in Politics? Rethinking `Conditions and Reasons' / Ronald Herring -- 7. Interpreting the Political Economy of the Indian State: Culture, Inequality, and the Conceptual Possibilities of In Pursuit of Lakshmi / Leela Femandes -- IV. State, Leadership, and Political Change -- 8. From Gandhi to Modi: Enlisting the Rudolphs to Understand Charismatic Leadership / Amrita Basu -- 9. In Pursuit of Saraswati: The Politics of Autonomy in the Indian University / Niraja Gopal Jayal -- 10. Civil-Military Relations and Democratic Stability / Steven I. Wilkinson -- 11. Centrism, Political Leadership, and the Future of Indian Politics / Kamal Sadia.