Lokniti

Lokniti - Programme for Comparative Democracy was established in 1997 as a research programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. The CSDS is an autonomous social science research institution. Since the inception of the CSDS in 1963, the writings of scholars like Rajni Kothari, D.L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy have become a point of reference for various attempts from the South to question the global establishment view of democracy. The CSDS has argued in favour of a more humane holistic view of democracy that goes beyond democratic institutions ad processes in their arrow sense and emphasises the survival of dissent and cultural contents of the civil society as central concerns of democracy.

The CSDS can be said to have pioneered large-scale empirical studies of the social and cultural basis of politics in South Asia. It also participated in empirical studies of politics in Africa, South America and East Europe at a time when many of these societies were relatively inaccessible. Outside Europe and North America, the CSDS Data Unit holdings might constitute one of the largest archive of social scientifically reliable survey data on political behaviour and attitudes, spanning more than four decades.