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Tag Search: “democracy”

Is it better to be governed by an elected leader or appointed bureaucrat?

The division of governance functions and responsibilities between politicians and bureaucrats varies, both across and within political regimes. Based on an experiment in Karnataka, this article examin...

  • Articles

Why political competition matters when inequality is high

In a high-inequality setting, local politicians with secure positions may favour the rich by diverting resources towards them, at the cost of the poor. To test this hypothesis, this article analyses d...

  • Articles

Policy Roundup: India has a new government

In the aftermath of the 2024 Lok Sabha election results, this post presents a curation of developments in the Indian policy landscape – highlighting I4I content on how coalition governments have histo...

  • Perspectives

What explains policy change? Understanding the historical political economy of India

Drawing on insights from his new book, ‘History of Economic Policy in India’, Rahul De frames policy change as precipitating through three circumstances: crisis, coalitions, and contingency. He uses h...

  • Perspectives

Second Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture: Inequality, Labour and Social Democracy

The Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture was instituted in 2022, in memory of our founding Editor-in-Chief, as an annual lecture on key issues of development. For its second edition, I4I hosted Professor Pra...

  • Videos

The growing wave of decentralisation: Comparative evidence from developing countries

Over the last few decades, decentralisation has been rapidly spreading in developing countries across the world, with around 35 countries announcing new or deepening decentralisation reforms in recent...

  • Videos

The growing wave of decentralisation: Comparative evidence from developing countries

Over the last few decades, decentralisation has been rapidly spreading in developing countries across the world, with around 35 countries announcing new or deepening decentralisation reforms in recent...

  • Podcasts

Impact of fiscal decentralisation and ethnic heterogeneity on choice of local polity

In this article, based on Chapter 7 of 'Decentralised Governance’, Mitra and Pal utilise Indonesia’s fiscal decentralisation to local communities in 2001 to examine how FD may differentially affect th...

  • Articles

Decentralised targeting of transfer programmes: A reassessment

Ahead of the release of ‘Decentralised Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World’, Dilip Mookherjee brings together some of the arguments against decentralisation of welfare programm...

  • Perspectives

Economic integration and the transmission of democracy

Dramatic increases in globalisation resulted in autocratic countries being exposed to the institutions and values of their democratic trade partners. Exploiting improvements in air transportation rela...

  • Articles

Institutionalising social audits: Lessons from Meghalaya

Sidharth Santhosh summarises key findings from Meghalaya's experience of mandating social auditing for welfare schemes, including the need for stronger coalitions between citizens and the state, and g...

  • Notes from the Field

Does being local matter? Administrative decentralisation and human development

In this post, Chaudhary and Iyer discuss the administrative decentralisation reforms brought about by the Panchayati Raj Act, and measure the effect of decentralisation on the provision of public serv...

  • Articles