Deepening Divides: Decentralized Development and the ‘Tyranny’ of Participation (original) (raw)
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Deepening Divides_Decentralization and the Tyranny of Paticipation.pdf
Journal of International Development , 2016
Decentralized governance and its possible shortcomings have been receiving increased attention in development discourse. However, there still remains a dearth of empirical data highlighting such pitfalls. Drawing on in-depth interviews and literature reviews, this paper explores the extent of decentralized development planning at the grassroots level. Using the state of Kerala, India as a case study, I explore how local government institutions, specifically those in areas of disadvantaged communities, might operate in a manner that questions its ability to enable communities to become effective participants, despite long running institutional arrangements that have been set up to promote just that.
IAEME PUBLICATION, 2024
India followed a parliamentary democracy system at the central and state levels, with bureaucratic governance at the lower levels. The 73’rd and 74’th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1993 brought a drastic change in power and position of bureaucracy at lower levels of administration in India. The empowerment of people at grass-roots levels is considered to be one of the most important tenets of the modern democratic administrative system. It provides much scope for the all-round development of society, thereby facilitating effective participation and empowerment of the people. People’s planning in Kerala as a measure of democratic decentralization attempts to introduce effective change in the role of bureaucracy and rural political leadership in the democratic direction.
A note on Decentralised Planning Initiative: possible lessons from the Kerala experience
2014
It has been widely acknowledged that democratic governance is best promoted through the widest participation of the people in local democracy and decentralized planning. Though with its own unique local context, Kerala’s achievements in micro level planning democratic participation can be treated as a useful example to understand, plan and engage with local development process.
Security and Society, 2010
The ongoing debates on the question of participatory democratic process through decentralization led by the state of Kerala, India, as new social arrangement in the regime of polity, has been a critical components in the domain of alternative strategies of development. To understand the idea of participation as a factor for effective local-self governance, an effort has been made to examine people's perception, attitude and involvement in the development process as pre-condition for citizenship. The paper explores the structural and cultural changes due to the institutionalization of Panchayati Raj system in the state. At one level, it examines the paradoxes of new institutional structures; that are being spiralled back into the past in terms of nepotism and lower levels of corruption. On the other side, new culture of power made citizens, who are increasingly becoming the passive beneficiaries, than active agents of change
DECENTRALISED GOVERNANCE AND PLANNING IN INDIA The Editors
Concept Publishing Pvt Ltd, 2023
Planning for promoting socio-economic development of marginalised people has emerged as a key function of Panchayats in India.This scenario is also found in the case of the scheduled areas of Odisha. On the basis of data collected from 300 households in two tribal districts of Odisha, this study argues that institutional arrangement and functioning of Panchayats have paved the way for formulation of decentralised development plans in these areas. The Panchayats have been playing a key role in the ways of formulating decentralised development plans and fostering the participation of tribal people in planning process.
Decentralisation and the changing geographies of political marginalisation in Kerala
Environment and Planning A, 2013
One of the benefits often claimed for 'moving' the state closer to people through the institutional reforms of democratic decentralisation is an improvement in the inclusion of politically marginalised groups. Decentralisation promises to deliver both the closer physical presence of centres of government and the formalisation of practices of representation at the grassroots. These changes in turn are expected to provide opportunities for historically margainalised groups to improve their associational capacities, and to gain recognition as rights-bearing citizens. This idea is examined through the experience of Kerala, which has one of the most thorough programmes of democratic decentralisation within India. Decentralisation has indeed provided new pathways to engage with local government. However attempts to 'rescale' the state to the local level have also reshaped existing institutional channels for representation, political discourses and everyday state practices, in ways which produce new micro-geographies of exclusion. This paper highlights the importance of these everyday experiences of marginalisation for programmes of state reform. It argues that if they are ignored, decentralisation risks reproducing narrow forms of majoritarian localism, and its potential to contribute to building substantive democracy will be lost.