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Introduction: Inclusiveness in Development Strategies and Policies Read chapter Read first chapter

2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Governing India: What Do We Know and Need to Know?

Author : Rahul Mukherji

Published in: Perspectives on Inclusive Policies for Development in India

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

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Abstract

This paper presents a view regarding state capacity in India after discussing the extensive literature on clientelism. It proposes that state capacity in India has much to do with the way in which the central and sub-national states cogitate about policy goals and the means to achieve them. For example, is import substitution or export promotion the way to grow? Will growth trickle down to the poor or is non-market redistribution the way to alleviate poverty? These issues are debated between puzzling bureaucrats and powering politicians, and when they reach a tipping point, we see that the state finds capacity to deliver even in a liberal democracy like India. The paper proposes a tipping point model for understanding state capacity in the Indian liberal democracy. It suggests a way for liberal democracies to fight clientelism and develop the capacity to pursue their goals, even though these goals are often unrealized.

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previous chapter Progress in Applied Econometrics in India: A Selective Review
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Footnotes
1
See The World Bank, World Development Indicators (2017). Date accessed: 6.7.2018 http://​databank.​worldbank.​org/​data/​download/​GDP_​PPP.​pdf.
 
2
ibid.
 
3
Trade to GDP ratio (Trade % of GDP) in China is 38 in 2017 where as this rate in India is 41. See The World Bank, World Development Indicators (2017). Date accessed: 6.7.2018. These figures are different from the conventional wisdom, which is in the text. https://​data.​worldbank.​org/​indicator/​NE.​TRD.​GNFS.​ZS.
 
4
For the difference between India and East Asia see Herring (1999) and Mukherji(2016).
 
5
On the ethnography of clientelism in India, see Piliavsky (2014).
 
6
See for example: Markussen, (2011); Maiorano, (2014); Mukherji, (2014); Klonner and Oldiges, (2014); Muralidharan et al., (2016); Mukherji and Jha (2017).
 
7
On “puzzling and powering”, see Heclo (1974); Hall (1993).
 
8
On ideological contestations, see Kudaisya (2009).
 
9
Mukherji (2014a), Chap. 2.
 
10
Mukherji (2014a), 23–33.
 
11
These views are derived from research presented in Mukherji, (2013) and Mukherji (2014a).
 
12
My views on Andhra Pradesh are based on Markussen, (2011); Maiorano (2014); Klonner and Oldiges, (2014); Muralidharan et al., (2016); Mukherji and Jha, (2017).
 
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Metadata
Title
Governing India: What Do We Know and Need to Know?
Author
Rahul Mukherji
Copyright Year
2022
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Book
Perspectives on Inclusive Policies for Development in India

Print ISBN: 978-981-19-0184-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-19-0185-0

Copyright Year: 2022

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0185-0_10