IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/padxxx/v30y2010i2p124-135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A toxic mix? Comparative efficiency and the privatization of sanitation services in India

Author

Listed:
  • Nilima Gulrajani
  • Willy McCourt
  • Jonathan Murphy

Abstract

This article explores why the World Bank and its Indian government partners, in their efforts to reform the urban water and sanitation sector in India, have failed to recognize and address the intolerable working conditions of Dalit (outcaste) sanitation workers. The conceptual framework for the article is provided by the theory of thought‐styles, developed by Ludwig Fleck and refined by Mary Douglas, and its application to neoliberal public policy by the North American legal scholar Sharon Dolovich, who observed the domination of the principle of ‘comparative efficiency’ in US prison policy debates. This approach is applied to understanding how the worsening conditions of already highly vulnerable Dalit sewage workers have been displaced from the sanitation policy debate. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Nilima Gulrajani & Willy McCourt & Jonathan Murphy, 2010. "A toxic mix? Comparative efficiency and the privatization of sanitation services in India," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(2), pages 124-135, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:30:y:2010:i:2:p:124-135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:wly:padxxx:v:30:y:2010:i:2:p:124-135. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0271-2075 .

    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.