Decentralization: institutions and politics in rural India

This volume successfully attempts to understand the process of rural transformation taking place in the country today by initiating a dialogue with the worlds of policy and civil society. It highlights the need to move beyond the normative notions of decentralization-replete in literature on fiscal federalism and liberal democracy. It provides an understanding of the dynamic world of democratic decentralization in policy and process, and how national, state, and local politics, and critical institutional requirements like political, fiscal, and administrative autonomy affect it. In doing so, it brings to the fore the role that microeconomics can play for local outcomes and shape macro consequences. It also recognizes that any attempt to formulate decentralization arguments, designs, and strategies needs to be validated and justified in practice. Finally, the volume while recognizing that constitutional amendments have provided vertical linkages for empowering the poor, aims to forge horizontal linkages of local governments to professionals like academics. It stresses on the need of the academic community to find mechanisms to institutionalize the learning process for the next generation.