New Directions in Indian Political Economy: Reflections on Development, Welfare, and Governance

In this introductory paper of the Special Issue, we explore how India’s political economy is moving in a new direction by focusing on three key political economy issues: development, welfare, and governance. India has undergone a substantial political transformation in recent years, especially since Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi formed the first majoritarian government in three decades in 2014. In this paper, we first demonstrate that this political transformation has a significant impact on the Indian political economy, given that the country is witnessing the rise of a new developmentalism, a new welfarism, and the new modes of governance. After that, we summarize the collections of articles of the Special Issue and situate them in relation to our central theme, new directions in the Indian political economy. This paper, and this Special Issue more broadly, seeks to contribute to the existing literature by introducing new analytical frameworks to understand recent changes in the Indian political economy and providing new empirical evidence on this topic drawing on content analysis and field research.