Longform APSA Awards (2024)

“Migrants and Machine Politics” by Adam Michael Auerbach and Tariq Thachil is an outstanding book that brings together deep ethnographic fieldwork, interviewing, and survey research to analyze political agency among Indian slum dwellers. Party ‘machines’ are almost always studied from an instrumental perspective of elites. Three years of combined ethnographic fieldwork and hundreds of interviews allow Auerbach and Thachil to challenge the literature on brokerage, urban politics and party machines and identify how political network are constructed at the grassroots level through intense political competition. This methodological perspective restores agency to slum dwellers who do not serve as passive targets of elite machinations but rather build ties to governing authorities through selecting their local community leaders. The book identifies how slum dwellers chose community leaders who best represent their interests and secure development; how community leaders act as brokers and pick projects that advance their political ambitions; and how political parties pick brokers who are competent in delivering the vote. The rich analysis reveals that in India, slum leaders frequently eschew exploiting ethnic divisions within their neighborhoods, instead favoring inclusive strategies for mobilizing broad swathes of support to help launch their own political careers outside slums. Auerbach and Thachil’s multimethod work is crucial reading on local-level democracy, party politics, and urban development.