Service Provision & Citizenship Practice: The Politics of Supply & Demand

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable will discuss recent research on citizen-state relations and service provision, exploring the questions of when and how citizens of the world’s largest democracy engage the state, and when and how government officials respond to citizens’ demands and claims. Using three recent and forthcoming books on Indian politics as springboards, the panelists will discuss patterns of citizenship practice and political representation that are emerging between and beyond the electoral arena. In Claiming the State: Active Citizenship & Social Welfare in Rural India (Cambridge University Press 2018), Kruks-Wisner documents the broad repertoires through which rural citizens make claims on the state, examining the conditions that foster and inhibit direct and mediated forms of citizen action. In Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), Auerbach explores the variable success of urban slum residents in demanding and securing services from the state. In Clients and Constituents: Political Responsiveness in Patronage Democracies (Oxford University Press 2019), Bussell examines the provision of non-partisan constituency service by elected officials, who respond to citizens’ wide-ranging requests for assistance without a clear expectation of an electoral quid-pro-quo. Together, these three works paint a rich and complex picture of citizen-state relations in India today, challenging important aspects of conventional wisdom concerning clientelism, partisanship, and ethnicity in distributive politics. Following brief author presentations on these three works, panelists with expertise on similar topics -- both in India and comparative settings -- will consider the books' cross-cutting themes, and discuss emerging trajectories for research in India and beyond.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 12: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries

Chair

• Ashutosh Varshney Brown University

Presenters

• Adam Michael Auerbach American University-SIS

• Jennifer L. Bussell University of California, Berkeley

• Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner University of Virginia

• Ellen M. Lust University of Gothenburg

• Lauren M. MacLean Indiana University, Bloomington

• Alison E. Post University of California, Berkeley

• Tariq Thachil Vanderbilt University