List of tables -- Notes on the contributors -- Acknowledgements and preface -- Abbreviations and acronyms -- Introduction: affirmative action, horizontal inequalities, and equitable development -- Poverty, equality, and affirmative action in India -- Struggle for equality and justice: affirmative action in the United States of America -- Ethnicity, economy and affirmative action in Malaysia -- Coerced preferences: affirmative action and horizontal inequality in Fiji -- Affirmative action in South Africa: disadvantaging the many for the benefit of the few -- Power-sharing, communal contestation, and equality: affirmative action, identity, and conflict in Northern Ireland -- Appraising affirmative action in Brazil.