Governing the Polycrisis: Modelling Systemic Risks in Fragile Mountain Regions
Aishani Pandey,Aniket Alam
Annual Midwest Political Science Conference, MPSA, 2026
@inproceedings{bib_Gove_2026, AUTHOR = {Pandey, Aishani and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Governing the Polycrisis: Modelling Systemic Risks in Fragile Mountain Regions}, BOOKTITLE = {Annual Midwest Political Science Conference}. YEAR = {2026}}
How can states and institutions govern crises that no longer occur in isolation but amplify one another across social, economic, and ecological systems? This paper addresses the problem of governing the polycrisis, understood as the convergence of multiple, interacting risks that defy linear policy responses. We propose a framework for modelling such complexity through a structured, two-level system of nodes and subnodes that maps interdependencies across domains of climate change, agricultural productivity, disaster preparedness and governance, and migration. This approach translates qualitative evidence from regional data, policy documents, and existing research into a reproducible network of 120 directional relationships, capturing both direct and cross-domain feedbacks. The model enables the identification of leverage points and cascading vulnerabilities, providing a diagnostic tool for anticipatory and adaptive governance. Applying this framework to the Western Himalayas, the study demonstrates how fragile mountain systems reveal the institutional and spatial limits of crisis management. By integrating computational modelling with political analysis, the paper advances a relational understanding of how states confront systemic risks in complex environments.
Edges of the Nation: Party System Divergence and Political Representation in Mountain India
Devesh Marwah,Aniket Alam
Studies in Indian Politics, SIP, 2025
Abs | | bib Tex
@inproceedings{bib_Edge_2025, AUTHOR = {Marwah, Devesh and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Edges of the Nation: Party System Divergence and Political Representation in Mountain India}, BOOKTITLE = {Studies in Indian Politics}. YEAR = {2025}}
India is a well-known exception to Duverger’s Law which states that single member
plurality electoral systems typically lead to a two-party dominance, due to strong
regional parties. We hypothesise that this India level phenomenon is overly
dominated by electoral data from densely populated regions like the Indo-Gangetic
plains. Drawing on anthropological and historical scholarship, we postulate that
mountain societies behave differently. To test our hypothesis we perform
quantitative analysis on electoral data comparing India’s Himalayan states to those
in the Gangetic and Brahmaputra plains. The results indicate that the plains are
diverging while the mountain states are converging towards Duverger’s two-party
equilibrium. This suggests that India’s mountain and plains states have a structural
dissimilarity in their political culture, which supports the anthropological and
historical literature from which we started. We hope to add to both the literature on
electoral studies as well as to mountain societies and regional studies.
The High and the Low: A Comparative Analysis of Mountain and Plain Polities in India
Devesh Marwah,Aniket Alam
International Conference on Humanity and Social Sciences, ICHSS, 2025
@inproceedings{bib_The__2025, AUTHOR = {Marwah, Devesh and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {The High and the Low: A Comparative Analysis of Mountain and Plain Polities in India}, BOOKTITLE = {International Conference on Humanity and Social Sciences}. YEAR = {2025}}
Existing research suggests that mountain and plain societies differ due to geographical factors and this study tests this hypothesis by examining the political dynamics of these two types of societies. We perform a quantitative analysis, followed by an exploration of possible qualitative explanations. Duverger’s Law states that single-member plurality electoral systems typically result in two-party dominance. However, India is a well-known exception in the literature due to strong regional parties as it deviates from this trend. For the quantitative analysis, central election data from the Election Commission of India from 1977 to 2014 is used to conduct a temporal analysis. Laakso and Taagepera’s Effective Number of Parties (ENP) metric is calculated by squaring each party’s share of votes or seats, summing these squares and taking the reciprocal. It is used to find the effective political parties that exist in a district considering both their number and vote share. According to Duverger’s Law, the ENP should ideally converge to 2 over time. This analysis reveals that in plains the ENP values are increasing over time (suggesting divergence) whereas mountain regions are gradually converging towards a two-party system. We conduct a one-way ANOVA for each election by grouping the ENP values for mountain and plain districts separately. A statistically significant difference between the ENP values of mountain and plain districts across all elections. For qualitative analysis, James Scott’s concept of Zomia along with different ideas of Zomia presented by Schendel, Schneiderman are discussed and how they might offer an explanation for the observation. Ultimately, the study sheds light on the socio-political distinctions between mountainous and plain regions in India, supporting historical and sociological theories that suggest mountain societies preserve unique political traits.
Mapping Urban Transformation in Himachal Pradesh: A Geospatial Exploration of Tourism-Driven Development
Chavatapalli P Venkata Satya Swamy Naidu,Aniket Alam
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, RJISH, 2024
@inproceedings{bib_Mapp_2024, AUTHOR = {Naidu, Chavatapalli P Venkata Satya Swamy and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Mapping Urban Transformation in Himachal Pradesh: A Geospatial Exploration of Tourism-Driven Development}, BOOKTITLE = {Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities}. YEAR = {2024}}
Celebrated for its stunning landscapes, Himachal Pradesh has become a renowned tourist destination, experiencing a surge in visitors. Since the 1980s, the state has witnessed significant economic growth, supported by a boom in the tourism industry. This research aims to correlate tourism with economic growth and analyse the unique tourism-driven development of Himachal Pradesh. We used urban built-up areas in key tourist hotspots as a proxy, and employed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and visual interpretation techniques to examine urban growth around Solang Valley, Bhagsunag Temple, Chail, Kufri, and Khajjiar from 1990 to 2020. Historical Landsat satellite imagery was utilised to quantify urban built-up changes. The findings revealed a significant increase in built-up areas within all tourist buffer zones, with Bhagsunag Temple showing the most dramatic growth (~1000%). Non-tourist locations with similar demographics showed an average increase of 55%, compared to 427% in tourist buffers. This study demonstrates that built-up areas have expanded more rapidly in tourist areas, highlighting the substantial impact of tourism on urban growth. These findings suggest the need for further exploration into tourism, policy studies, and economics in Himachal Pradesh.
Keywords: GIS, Tourism, Urbanisation, Remote Sensing, Landsat, Himachal Pradesh.
PastPaths: Mapping Historical Trade from Text
Hitesh Goel,Easwar Balaramkrishnan,Aniket Alam
Turkey Computational Social Science Conference, TCSS, 2024
@inproceedings{bib_Past_2024, AUTHOR = {Goel, Hitesh and Balaramkrishnan, Easwar and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {PastPaths: Mapping Historical Trade from Text}, BOOKTITLE = {Turkey Computational Social Science Conference}. YEAR = {2024}}
Computational History, Trade in Mountain Societies, NLP – NER, Relation Extraction,
Application of LLMs.
7 - Commodity Journeys and Market Circuits: Making Borders ‘Natural’ in Colonial Western Himalayas
Aniket Alam
South Asian Borderlands, SABL, 2022
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@inproceedings{bib_7_-__2022, AUTHOR = {Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {7 - Commodity Journeys and Market Circuits: Making Borders ‘Natural’ in Colonial Western Himalayas}, BOOKTITLE = {South Asian Borderlands}. YEAR = {2022}}
One important reason that the British were attracted to the western Himalayas was the prospect of trade. From the eighteenth century onwards, there were regular attempts to find out the extent of the trade that was carried out through the mountains, the countries it was carried out with and the value of this trade. Whether it was the ‘missions’ of Moorcroft and Trebeck, or of the various other explorers and merchants who were either financed by the East India Company or were helped and encouraged in their personal voyages, the question of trade dominated the agenda. Until well into the nineteenth century, the British in India assumed that the control of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush mountains would open trade routes to them into China and Russia, respectively. It was only in the mid-nineteenth century that it started becoming clear to the officials of the East India Company and the British government in London that the volume and value of trade, particularly through the Himalayan passes, was not worth the amount of military and financial commitment that was required to sustain it. It was only from this time that it is possible to discern a new discourse emerging in British accounts—both official as well as personal: that the Himalayas were a natural border of their Indian Empire. Once the British realised that the scope for trade was limited over the Himalayas, much of their efforts in the nineteenth century were spent to find the ‘natural’ land borders of their Indian Empire which they could defend, most notably from the Russian Empire. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these borders have been accepted as the geo-civilisational borders of India in much of popular imagination. Scholarly work too has implicitly accepted these ‘natural’ borders of British India, even if there is a recognition that the post-Partition, post-independence borders are clearly manmade; particularly in the last two decades or so with the emergence of focussed scholarship on this theme.
Evolution of Political Ideology in India: Through Election Manifestos
AQUIB JAMALE,Aniket Alam
Annual Midwest Political Science Conference, MPSA, 2022
@inproceedings{bib_Evol_2022, AUTHOR = {JAMALE, AQUIB and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Evolution of Political Ideology in India: Through Election Manifestos}, BOOKTITLE = {Annual Midwest Political Science Conference}. YEAR = {2022}}
The paper looks into the ideological shifts in the Major political parties in India over the first two decades of this century. This is done by analysing the election manifestos published by Political parties for the general elections held in this period. The paper places Political parties in the left-right spectrum on social, economic and political dimensions. Also, it analyses the focus given by political parties on various topics to understand the priority focusing on Labour Vs Capital, Centre Vs Periphery, Rich Vs Poor and Urban Vs Rural debates. The political parties broadly maintain their ideological stand over different subjects. We observe a reduction in the space manifestos left for Labourers and their welfare while capital is given more importance over time. Similarly, Focus is slowly shifting to Urban areas from rural areas. We argue that the shift in demographics with the burgeoning middle class and increasing Urban population has led to this ideological shift in Indian political parties. We observe that the position on federalism has become a major dividing issue among major political parties, with a stark contrast between the views of ruling and opposition parties. The focus on Social welfare schemes remains the focus for all political parties, and a significant policy shift to the Middle class at the expense of the poor is not observed.
Sporting Graphs : The Play Between Knowledge and Graphs
GURRAM SRAVYA,Aniket Alam
Graphs and Networks in the Humanitie, GNH, 2022
@inproceedings{bib_Spor_2022, AUTHOR = {SRAVYA, GURRAM and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Sporting Graphs : The Play Between Knowledge and Graphs}, BOOKTITLE = {Graphs and Networks in the Humanitie}. YEAR = {2022}}
The ontological study of Sports and our approach of using graphical representations to analyse, classify and attempt to define sports was preceded by our discovery of a rather little known fact. It is that art competitions were a part of the modern day Olympics for more than three decades, spanning from 1912 to 1948. The inclusion and the eventual exclusion of art competitions in what is today considered the citadel of sporting events caught our attention. The reason for discontinuing art competitions can be traced to the institution's emphasis on ‘amateurship’ on the part of the participants. Artists were considered established professionals whereas sports persons were considered ‘amateur gentlemen’. Although the reason to exclude did not stem from the debate if sport is an artform, the question seemed worthy of our perusal.
What Do Preambles Do? A Study of Constitutional Intent and Reality
Neha Ummareddy,Aniket Alam
Studies in Indian Politics, SIP, 2021
@inproceedings{bib_What_2021, AUTHOR = {Ummareddy, Neha and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {What Do Preambles Do? A Study of Constitutional Intent and Reality}, BOOKTITLE = {Studies in Indian Politics}. YEAR = {2021}}
We, the people’ is the most popular phrase from the constitutions. In spite of the fact that the number of countries including preamble as part of their constitution has been on the rise, preambles have received scant attention in academia. The importance of preambles has been established in multiple studies yet preambles have been looked at in isolation from socio-economic-environmental contexts. Our article attempts to present a unique insight by correlating preambles with the socio-economicenvironmental and infrastructural context within which they exist. It explores whether these correlations exist and if they do with which features and to what extent and the possibility of a causal link. We pursue a statistical study between various indicators that reflect the growth of a country and the presence or absence of various elements in preambles across the world. Our study finds that correlations exist between the economic-social-environmental and infrastructural context of a nation-state and different elements in their preambles. Our study rigorously engages with patterns in development indicators across years to provide correlational insights into the role of preambles not just as a dormant reference but as active fragments of the socio-political-economic reality of a nation-state. We hope our article establishes grounds for a further study of the manner in which preambles and the nonpolitical aspects of a nation-state can engage with each other.
ESO-5W1H Framework: Ontological model for SITL paradigm.
SHUBHAM R RATHI,Aniket Alam
international workshop on Augmenting Intelligence with Humans-in-the-Loop, HUML, 2018
@inproceedings{bib_ESO-_2018, AUTHOR = {RATHI, SHUBHAM R and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {ESO-5W1H Framework: Ontological model for SITL paradigm.}, BOOKTITLE = {international workshop on Augmenting Intelligence with Humans-in-the-Loop}. YEAR = {2018}}
The HITL paradigm has been extended as SITL (SocietyIn-The-Loop) to account for the broader role of AI in the society and vice versa. To open up these otherwise opaque systems and their nexus of interactions with humans, there is a need to make tools to program and debug the algorithmic social contract, a pact between various human stakeholders, mediated by machines. In this paper, we propose one such tool, the ESO-5W1H framework to adjudge the role of humans and machines in their respective interactions and to structure the underlying decision making process such that accountability and liability for each system action-interactions can be brought to the fore. We discuss the working of this conceptual framework in the context of three use cases: the Self-driving car, an AI-based jury, and Neural Networks
Clickbaits: Curious Hypertexts for news narratives in the digital medium
V S LASYA VIBHAVARI,Aniket Alam
@inproceedings{bib_Clic_2017, AUTHOR = {VIBHAVARI, V S LASYA and Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Clickbaits: Curious Hypertexts for news narratives in the digital medium}, BOOKTITLE = {ACM Hypertext }. YEAR = {2017}}
News reporting is increasingly becoming an exercise in attention catching headlines1, and raising expectations which trigger sharing on social media. The proposed paper examines how conventional journalism can stay viable despite the transformations brought by rapidly changing media forms. We examine the role of human curiosity as a major contributing factor in online content navigating mechanisms such as clickbaits, listicles, and sharing behaviour on social media. As news reporting shifts online, the navigation on the internet resembles the exploration of primitive humans beyond their immediate needs. The clickbaity headlines are becoming popular with editors and readers putting pressure on news reports to ’dumbdown’. This paper will explore how evolutionary anthropology, psychology, neuroscience and sociology provide insights into the working of clickbaits: ‘how exactly do they attract viewers and why?’ It is based on a study of news reports in three mainstream Indian newspapers over one year (2014) during which an important general election was held. It studies the headlines that garner attention and analyse their morphology. We hope to use our learnings on clickbaits to see how journalism which stays true to its mandate of informing citizens and providing news can attract views and readership and thus remain viable.
Clueless Nationalists: The Indian Left in the Era of Globalisation
Aniket Alam
Research Journal of Social Sciences, RJSS, 2017
@inproceedings{bib_Clue_2017, AUTHOR = {Alam, Aniket }, TITLE = {Clueless Nationalists: The Indian Left in the Era of Globalisation}, BOOKTITLE = {Research Journal of Social Sciences}. YEAR = {2017}}
This article attempts to look at the manner in which the leftwing in Indian politics has dealt with the globalisation of India's economy and the consequent changes in foreign policy over the two decades since 1991. The left in India opposed the new economic policies, of which globalisation was a central aspect, and worked to build a wide consensus against it within the polity. The left's opposition to globalisation was premised on the fact that it would lead to a watering-down of India's sovereignty and will lead to the imposition of economic and foreign policies that would be detrimental to the nation. Despite deep internal differences on a range of issues within the left in India, this was a shared understanding of what globalisation meant and what its consequences would be. This article looks at how the left built up its opposition to globalisation of the Indian economy and how has it steered this opposition over the two decades since. It argues that the left's analysis of both the major characteristics of globalisation as well as its consequences for India's economy and foreign policy have proved to be grossly inadequate, if not entirely erroneous. However, despite mounting evidence that globalisation was not a disaster for the Indian economy, nor did it whittle down the State's sovereignty, there was no revision in the left's analysis or political stand. The article argues that the Indian radical has been unable to come to terms with or define globalisation, and remains unsure of how to engage with it. This has led to theoretical confusions, which have opened the door to the left's hegemonisation by the idea of nationalism, to the extent where its positions often become indistinguishable from the radical right. The article concludes by suggesting that this failure to analyse and engage with globalisation has been both a symptom as well as the cause of the weakening of the leftwing in Indian politics
