This book examines the issues of urban governance and local democracy in South India. It is the first comprehensive volume that offers comparative frameworks on urban governance across all states in the region: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The book focuses on governance in small district-level cities and raises crucial questions such as the nature of urban planning, major outstanding issues for urban local governance, conditions of civic amenities such as drinking water and sanitation and problems of social capital in making urban governance work in these states. It emphasizes on both efficient urban governance and effective local democracy to meet the challenges of fast-paced urbanization in these states while presenting policy lessons from their urbanization processes. Rich in empirical data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, public administration, governance, public policy, development studies and urban studies, as well as practitioners and non-governmental organizations.

"Understanding decentralization in the context of the existing political system as also recognizing the needs of the people, this volume will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of politics, history and sociology, as well as to social activists and journalists."--BOOK JACKET.

In the era of globalization, comparative government and politics have come to the forefront due to the transformations of the social welfare state and the subsequent social, economic, political, cultural, technological and administrative changes. Taking a particular look at local government systems can uncover new perspectives on issues related to globalization, localization, governance, new democracy movements, managerial reformation, and privatization. Comparative Studies and Regionally-Focused Cases Examining Local Governments is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the role played by local governments in overall administration, types and models of government at the local level, consequences of managerial reformations, and new develops regarding structure, process, personnel, and policymaking aspects of government. Highlighting relevant perspectives from comparative research and case studies, this book is ideally designed for students, government officials, politicians, civil society representatives, and academicians.

In this definitive history, a key figure in the People's Campaign in Kerala provides a unique insider's account of one of the world's most extensive and successful experiments in decentralization. Launched in 1996, the campaign mobilized over 3 million of Kerala's 30 million people and resulted in bottom-up development planning in all 1,052 of its villages and urban neighborhoods. The authors tell a powerful story of mass mobilization and innovation as bureaucratic opposition was overcome, corruption and cynicism were rooted out, and parliamentary democracy prevailed. Considering both the theoretical and applied significance of the campaign in the context both of India's development since independence and of recent international debates about decentralization, civil society, and empowerment, the book provides invaluable lessons for sustainable development worldwide.

Studies citizens' deliberation on governance and development in Indian democracy, and the influence of state policy and literacy, analysing three hundred village assemblies. This title is also available as Open Access.

Contributed research papers presented at a workshop organised by Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University in collaboration with the UNDP and UN-Habitat in April 2002.

In Indian context.

One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.

Leading scholars consider how democracy has taken root in India despite poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity.