Author: Madhav Khosla | Journal of Democracy

Madhav Khosla is Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Professor of Indian Constitutional Law and professor of political science at Columbia University. His books include India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy (2020).

July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3

The Authoritarian Argument

Madhav Khosla

Authoritarian regimes are not lawless. Rather, autocrats take to the courtroom not only to enforce their will but to justify their rule. So how do they appeal to reason? How do they rationalize their undemocratic turn?

January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1

The Three Faces of the Indian State

Madhav Khosla
Milan Vaishnav

India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.