Includes bibliographical references.

Discursive political culture -- Political construction, state enactments, and citizen performances -- The role of literacy in deliberative democracy -- Conclusion : oral democracy.

"This book is a scholarly investigation into the gram sabhas' potential for enhancing the capacity of ordinary citizens to engage with democracy under the enormously wide-ranging conditions and constraints that shape life in rural India. Our data are transcripts from 298 village assemblies from four neighboring South Indian states that were sampled and recorded within the framework of a natural experiment. And we use discourse analysis on this corpus of transcript data to gain insights into how India's rural citizens engage with this form of direct democracy"-- Provided by publisher.