This week, in partnership with the Hindustan Times, we kick off a five-part series on our  new book, Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India. Each day this week, HT will publish a column drawing on our new volume, highlighting the brilliant analyses several of our authors have put together.

For the inaugural piece, Devesh Kapur and I provide an introduction that summarizes the key takeaways of the book and reminds readers why adequately regulating political finance is fundamental to a healthy democracy.

Here’s a glimpse:

Distortions in electoral finance can undermine that legitimacy and threaten democracy itself. In our view, there can hardly be a worthier, yet more underexplored, line of research for scholars to pursue, and for the public to understand.

You can read the full piece here.