Review of Adam M. Auerbach and Tariq Thachil 2023: Migrants and Machine Politics: How India’s Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness. Princeton: Princeton University Press

In bringing together interdisciplinary literature from political science, anthropology, geography and urban studies, this well-researched book highlights the workings of micro-level urban politics in the global South.It provides an in-depth analysis of the formation of party machines in India, defined by the authors as 'pyramidal hierarchies of party workers that mobilize low-income voters during elections' (p.5).Auerbach and Thachil highlight the relationships between patrons, brokers and urban slum residents (or clients) as they navigate party machines.This book is particularly relevant to urban scholars of the global South, where urbanization is increasingly characterized by a growth in densely packed informal settlements inhabited by poor migrants.The authors connect the physical city and the policies that run it to the micro-politics and competition of party machines.Auerbach and Thachil argue that 'understanding how urban political networks form reveals who secures representation and accountability within city politics' (p. 6).Party machines are conditioned by competition at four stages of the 'selection framework' (p.20), and these four stages are reflected in the structure of the book, with chapters 2 to 5 discussing, respectively: how residents choose who becomes a leader; how leaders decide whose concerns are important and what to relay to patrons; how patrons choose brokers; and how patrons respond to claims and make their assessments.