Deliberations on Intellectual Property Rights in Indian Parliament: Contestation of Social Values through Political Negotiations

• In Event: Social Studies of Politics: State Affect? 1

Abstract

North (1990) has viewed parliament as a place where transactions and discussions on policies take place. The political systems are viewed to be rationally devised and rationally employed, which is to say that they are appropriate instruments for the fulfillment of desires of members of the society (Stigler, 1971) and democracy has been observed as a move towards achieving greater political efficiency (North, 1990). North (1995; 2003; 1994, p. 360) introduced two forms of institutions – formal and informal, where he argues for the constraining role of institutions on human behavior vis-a-vis informal institutions in decision making. The literature on institutions has emphasized on the issue of complementarity where the transferred formal institution may not be in complementarity with already existing institutions.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is one such global standard institution, which has been transferred and homogenized across the world. Given India’s prevalent caste system and income inequality, the political parties in India are backed by interests of diverse sections of the society. In order to identify various social values promoted and preserved by the various political parties, this study carries out content analysis of discourse on Patent Bills and Copyright Bills. We observe that despite the pressure of adopting strong IPR, several regional political parties have repeatedly argued for social values not prominently brought forward by national level political parties, whereas, in case of a coalition government, regional parties have been able to translate these values into policy. Such discrepancies in values surrounding IPR thereby underline the existing non-complementarity between the institution of IPR and the prevailing Informal and formal institutions.

Author

• Deep Jyoti Francis, Jawaharlal Nehru University