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We advance a framework for analysis of democratic contestation in the policy and media spheres, in the context of the interest group theory and the stages of public policy evolution, to assess whether the contestation process favors some stakeholders over others in India, with a model that predicts pro- or anti-dam policy discourses in the news. There is evidence from participation in environmental movements, especially in the case of anti-dam protest groups, in the policy sphere that play a role in the contestation of scientific knowledge. Our core concern is to understand whether representation of the voices of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and protest groups in the news media affects public policy on controversial mega-projects such as the building of a mega-dam. Our focus is on the timely and critically important case of the Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Project (LSHEP), a mega-dam on the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, the highest earthquake zoned states through which runs the mighty Brahmaputra river. The mega-dam construction was suspended after widespread protests led by social and environmental activists in 2010–11. However, the construction resumed after the election of the BJP-led national government in 2014 and in the state of Assam in 2016. The revival precipitated a new phase of democratic contestation in the policy sphere in 2015–17 which is modeled here, based on content analysis of news reporting. We find that in the policy sphere, the voices of anti-dam activists did not succeed in fostering an anti-dam frame in the news media in the form of news stories opposing the dam.

Contesting in the policy sphere: stakeholders and policy formulation on the lower Subansiri dam in the Northeast