Department of Political Science and International Relations (DPSIR) at the University of Management and Technology, Lahore, congratulates Associate Professor Dr Muhammad Shoaib Pervez, who headed DPSIR as Chairman from 2016 till 2023, on the publication of his third book entitled “South Asia from Margins: Transformations in the Political Space” from Routledge which he co-edited with former faculty member of DPSIR Dr Asad ur Rehman who is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at Habib University, Karachi.
This edited volume brings together a group of scholars examining the effects of social change on politics in South Asia. It cobbles an inductive analytical framework of South Asian margins, to comparatively study the political transformations across the region.
The book envisages politics encompassing the interests, imaginations, activities, and actions of numerous actors. Individual contributors analyze the collective choices made by national elites over the past few decades and their implications for the development, democracy, and security of their respective countries and the region. The resulting analytical framework provides a comparative political matrix of analysis that prioritizes the margins over the center. The matrix compares different countries around the axis of (a) Political Contestations and Engagements, (b) Decoloniality and populism, and (c) Policy frames and visions. It is a contrapuntal analysis that establishes margins as a legitimate place to approach the social scientific study of South Asia.
Being important and timely contribution to the field, this book will be of interest to researchers studying Asian Politics, comparative politics, Area studies in particular South Asia and Pakistan, and International Relations.