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This chapter shows how after the 2012 election the Republican Party took an extraordinary inward look at itself, documented its many failings vis-à-vis the Democrats, and launched new initiatives to correct them. The chapter reveals the outcomes of this work during the 2014 midterm elections, and analyzes the state of the party network with respect to technology, digital, data, and analytics through the lens of two high-profile campaigns of the cycle: Mitch McConnell’s Senate re-election bid and Scott Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. At the same time, with respect to the Democrats, this chapter reveals how fragile political infrastructures are. This chapter concludes with an analysis of the political economy of campaign consulting and the barriers to the diffusion of innovations in campaign practice through an analysis of a number of Democratic state-level bids in 2014.

The 2014 national elections were an ideological showdown between the main political parties with distinctly different visions offered to Indian voters. The BJP advocated a de-emphasis on statism and recognition whereas the Congress and many regional parties favored the status quo. Voter surveys of the 2014 election provide clear evidence of this ideological divide both among party members and voters of particular parties. The divide was furthered by Narendra Modi, the chief campaigner for the BJP, whose personal appeal was important to the electoral success of the BJP. Consistent with theoretical expectations ideologically motivated voters were more likely to participate in political activity around election time. They are also able to distinguish between the ideological vision offered by the various parties and coalitions.

Though Gurudom is diverse, Gurus and Hindu Nationalism have a shared world, promoting and patronizing each other. With the onset of the New Age mediatized Hinduism and the rising popularity of these Gurus, the bonding between Hinduism and Hindutva has got strengthened further. Reflecting on Yoga guru and entrepreneur Ramdev’s life-journey, world-view, political activism, particularly with reference to his anti-corruption crusade, this chapter argues that though Ramdev’s Hindu revivalist and nationalist ideas are closer to the Sangh gospel in many ways, Ramdev has always nurtured his own political ambition and agenda. Analysing the complexities of Ramdev’s political ideas and actions, it tries to understand why Ramdev, setting aside his own agenda, decided to have a partnership with Modi and the BJP in the 2014 elections.

Better understanding about the Afghan Taliban allowed India to advocate political reconciliation, but also made it wary about the way NATO members — especially the UK — were going about it. This chapter explains why, despite accepting the merits of a political solution, India stiffly opposed the idea of reconciling with the Taliban at the 2010 London Conference. It explains how the partisans and conciliators debated providing lethal military equipment to Afghanistan, why they could not reach a timely decision, and how they viewed the 2014 Afghan elections and the rise of Ashraf Ghani as president of Afghanistan. Critically, the chapter shows the influence that the conciliators exerted on India’s policy in 2015, (despite having a Hindu nationalist government that is staunchly opposed to holding unconditional talks with Pakistan) confidently (but not happily) accepting Ghani’s diplomatic outreach to Pakistan.