(a) Explain the impact of electoral systems and cleavages in shaping party systems with reference to developing countries. (20…

(a) Electoral systems, cleavages and party systems in developing countries

Duverger (Political Parties, 1951) linked electoral formulas to party competition: plurality/FPTP mechanically penalises third parties and encourages strategic voting, consolidating two-party competition, while proportional representation (PR) lowers entry barriers and fosters multipartism. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) showed the other side: party systems reflect historical cleavages (centre-periphery, church-state, land-industry, owner-worker) that became "frozen" once mass suffrage arrived. In developing societies the rules interact with caste, ethnicity, religion and class. Where cleavages cross-cut, competition pushes parties towards the centre and broad coalitions; where they reinforce each other, electoral systems institutionalise the fault lines into fragmented competition, which is why Lijphart recommends PR and consociationalism for deeply divided societies while Horowitz prefers vote-pooling systems that reward cross-ethnic appeals. In India, FPTP first supported the catch-all "Congress system" (Rajni Kothari); deepening caste and regional cleavages then produced identity-based parties such as the BSP and the SP, followed by BJP dominance and a return to coalition dependence in 2024. In Nigeria, FPTP across Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo divides sharpened ethnic parties, leading to constitutional requirements of geographical spread. Brazil's open-list PR within a federation reinforced regional clientelism and extreme fragmentation, producing "coalitional presidentialism". South Africa's closed-list PR allowed the ANC to dominate as a liberation movement until it lost its majority in 2024. Rules thus translate cleavages into party systems through institutional incentives.

(b) Globalisation and the debate over its consequences

Giddens defines globalisation as the intensification of worldwide social relations linking distant localities; Held, McGrew and colleagues (Global Transformations, 1999) call it a multidimensional process of spatial expansion, deepening and acceleration of interconnectedness across economic, political, cultural and technological domains. The debate is intense because the consequences are unevenly distributed and three schools read them differently. Hyperglobalisers such as Ohmae (The Borderless World) see a borderless economy that marginalises state sovereignty; sceptics such as Hirst and Thompson see only heightened internationalisation with the state still supreme; transformationalists see an open-ended process that reshapes, but does not end, state power. Economically, Stiglitz (Globalization and Its Discontents) argues that asymmetric market integration widens inequality; Milanovic's "elephant curve" shows that Asia's middle classes and the global top 1 per cent gained most between 1988 and 2008 while rich-country lower-middle classes stagnated. Politically, delegating authority to supranational bodies produces a "democratic deficit", and Rodrik's trilemma (2011) holds that deep integration, national sovereignty and democracy cannot all be had together. Culturally, it provokes resistance to homogenisation. Brexit, the US-China trade war, COVID-19 supply-chain shocks and the sweeping US tariffs of 2025 have produced "slowbalisation" and "friend-shoring".

(c) US hegemonic decline and the changing international order

The decline thesis runs from Paul Kennedy's "imperial overstretch" (1987) through Fareed Zakaria's "rise of the rest" (2008) to Amitav Acharya's "multiplex world" (2014). Economically, China's economy has been larger in purchasing-power terms since the mid-2010s, though the dollar still accounts for close to three-fifths of global reserves. Militarily, inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ending in the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021, exposed the limits of hard power. Politically, polarisation and unilateral moves, such as broad tariffs, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the WHO, and the dismantling of USAID in 2025, have eroded soft power, making part of the decline self-inflicted. Joseph Nye stresses resilience: unmatched defence innovation, alliance networks, financial markets and universities indicate asymmetric primacy, not collapse. The implication is a diffusion of power towards a polycentric order: the prominence of the G20, an expanded BRICS (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joined in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025) and alternative institutions such as the NDB and AIIB. The multilateral system faces normative fragmentation, as rising powers demand sovereign equality over Western-centric norms. India exercises strategic autonomy and multi-alignment within this fluid order. The decline is thus relative, not absolute, and the order is moving from US-led to contested multipolarity.