Die indische Demokratie und ihr Konflikt mit den Naxaliten. Ein Kampf gegen die eigenen Prinzipien?

Abstract Though known as the biggest democracy in the world, India is constantly afflicted by violent internal conflicts. The struggle with the Maoist Naxalite movement has become the most pressing of these internal problems in recent years. Major parts of the scientific research on internal conflict and revolutionary movements focus on the reasons, characteristics and consequences of this movement’s activities for the democratic system. This article tries to shift the perspective to the impact of antirevolutionary government measures on the democratic quality of a state. The underlying assumption is that these government measures often have unintended consequences for the quality of democracy, which might lead to an erosion of the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the rebels and their sympathizers, thereby serving to escalate the conflict. To assess these negative effects three categories of antirevolutionary governance measures are introduced: measures of coercion, political inclusion and economic inclusion. Subsequently, their respective influence on the three dimensions of democratic quality suggested by Diamond and Morlino is examined in the specific case of the anti-Naxalite activities of the Indian government.