IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/igdrpp/v7y2014i1p12-41.html

Accountability of local and state governments in India: an overview of recent research

Author

Listed:
  • Dilip Mookherjee

Abstract

Purpose - – This paper aims to provide an overview of recent research on accountability of local and state governments in India. Design/methodology/approach - – The Downsian theory of electoral competition is used as a departure point for classifying different sources of government accountability failures. Subsequent sections deal with each of these sources in turn: limited voter participation and awareness; ideology, honesty and competence of political parties and electoral candidates; capture by elites; clientelism and vote-buying. Each section starts by explaining the relevant departure from the Downsian framework and then reviews available empirical evidence in the Indian context for each of these possible “distortions”, besides effects of related policy interventions. The final section summarizes the lessons learnt, and the fresh questions that they raise. Findings - – The paper describes a range of possible reasons that limit the effectiveness of elections as a mechanism inducing governments to be accountable to their citizens and reviews the evidence available from the Indian context concerning each of these. Originality/value - – The contribution of the paper is to provide an overview and perspective of recent literature on political economy problems affecting performance of state and local governments in India.

Suggested Citation

  • Dilip Mookherjee, 2014. "Accountability of local and state governments in India: an overview of recent research," Indian Growth and Development Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(1), pages 12-41, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:igdrpp:v:7:y:2014:i:1:p:12-41
    DOI: 10.1108/IGDR-12-2013-0049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IGDR-12-2013-0049/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IGDR-12-2013-0049/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IGDR-12-2013-0049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2016. "Affirmative action policy in developing countries: Lessons learned and a way forward," WIDER Working Paper Series 052, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Somjit Barat, 2022. "Attitudes of the Indian Middle Class: A Theory of Planned Behavior Approach," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 8(1), pages 21-42, January.
    3. Samuel Adams & Kingsley Agomor, 2020. "Decentralization, Partisan Politics, and National Development in Ghana," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 351-366, June.
    4. Anindya Bhattacharya & Anirban Kar & Alita Nandi, 2016. "Local institutional structure and clientelistic access to employment: the case of MGNREGS in three states of India," Working papers 269, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    5. Kaletski, Elizabeth & Prakash, Nishith, 2016. "Does Political Reservation for Minorities Affect Child Labor? Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 50-69.
    6. Teferi Mergo & Alain-Desire Nimubona & Horatiu Rus, 2019. "Political Representation and the Provision of Public Goods: Theory and Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 1901, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2019.
    7. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2016. "Affirmative action policy in developing countries: Lessons learned and a way forward," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Mansuri, Ghazala & Palaniswamy, Nethra & Rao, Vijayendra & Shrestha, Slesh A., 2023. "Money versus Kudos: The impact of incentivizing local politicians in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:igdrpp:v:7:y:2014:i:1:p:12-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.