Author: Devesh Kapur
Pratap Bhanu Mehta/
Editor(s): Devesh Kapur / Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 491
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195667263
Description
The modern state secures legitimacy and carries out its tasks of governance and development through a diverse range of institutions. This volume analytically assesses the design, performance, and adaptability of the principal institutions of governance in India and their critical role in a democratic polity.
It is axiomatic that societies are well governed and well organized to the extent that their public institutions can adequately manage the demands imposed on them. In India, it is commonly held that a modest record in development and governance is explained by the somewhat limited utility of many public institutions.
The volume looks at the Parliament, Presidency, institutions of internal accountability, the Judiciary, Police, and the Civil Service in addition to economic institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, as also several regulatory bodies, paying special attention to the variables like autonomy, accountability, and information-sharing that have affected the performance of different institutions across time.
Also included are essays that explore the critical role played by institutions in enhancing economic performance, strengthening federalism, and deepening the democratic impulse in India. In addition, they look at how electoral uncertainty has given a new lease of life to referee institutions like the Election Commission and the Supreme Court.
Further, the volume looks at the variations in institutional performance of the Indian state across time, and evaluates if the state has the capacity to adapt to a changing environment.
Providing detailed and original insights into the working of institutions and assessing the manner in which they assist, strengthen, thwart, manipulate, and subvert each other, this unique volume will be of interest to a scholarly audience in political science, public administration, and political sociology in addition to bureaucrats and policy planners, journalists, activists, and an informed general audience.
Contents
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
INTRODUCTION
Explaining Democratic Durability and Economic Performance: The Role of India's Institutions
The Indian Parliament
The Presidency
Institutions and Internal Accountability
India's Judiciary: The Promise of Uncertainty
The Police in India: Design, Performance, and Adaptability
Civil Service: An Institutional Perspective
Reserve Bank of India: A Study in the Separation and Attrition of Powers
India's Federal Institutions and Economic Reform
New Regulatory Institutions in India: White Knights or Trojan Horses?
A Rising Tide of Demands: India's Public Institutions and the Democratic Revolution
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX