This paper examines on a global scale how important it is for young democracies to deliver economic welfare to win the hearts of their citizens. A decoupling of popular support for democratic form of government from economic performance is believed to be conducive to the consolidation of young democracies. We found an encouraging global pattern that clearly shows evaluations of economic condition are relatively unimportant in explaining level of popular support for democracy. However, high-income East Asian countries register a glaring exception to this global generalization, suggesting that their distinctive trajectory of regime transition has imposed on democratic regimes an additional burden of sustaining a record of miraculous economic growth of the past.

Current intellectual trends advocate devolution of authority from national governments to local governments and civil society, especially for the provision of public goods. This paper, based on a large national survey conducted in India, shows that most Indians still look to the state, and state governments in particular, to address the problems that they face.

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The BJP victory in the 2019 elections is attributed to a range of factors. This article examines the role of the leadership factor in propelling the BJP to victory in this election. While the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP/NDA was clearly the preferred choice, the National Election Study 2019, undertaken by Lokniti-CSDS, indicates that one-thirds of those who supported the BJP would have altered their voting preference if Modi were not to be the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party. The article explores the leadership factor in the 2019 election and concludes that it was a major factor that influenced voter choice.