Participatory governance has a long history in India and this book traces historical-intellectual trajectories of participatory governance and how older Western discourses have influenced Indian policymakers. While colonial rulers devolved power to accommodate dissenting voices, for independent India, participatory governance was a design for democratizing governance in its true sense. Participation also acted as a vehicle for localizing governance. The author draws on both Western and non-Western theoretical treatises and the book seeks to conceptualize localizing governance also as a contextual response. It also makes the argument that despite being located in different socio-economic and political milieu, thinkers converge to appreciate localizing governance as perhaps the only reliable means to democratize governance. The book aims to confirm this argument by reference to sets of evidence from the Indian experience of localizing governance. By attempting a genealogy of participatory governance in the West and in India, and an empirical study of participatory governance in India, the book sheds light on the exchange of ideas and concepts through space and time, thus adding to the growing body of literature in the social sciences on ‘conceptual flow’. It will be of interest to political scientists and historians, in particularly those studying South Asia.

Since its adoption in 2015, the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development has shaped not only international development cooperation but also the design of national trajectories for social and economic development. In tandem with other global agendas adopted that year (such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda) it remains the global and regional blueprint for sustainable development despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The term "localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" has been used to capture the importance of subnational governments for achieving national SDG agendas. However, there is little deeper analysis of the required nexus between fiscal, political, and legal arrangements for SNGs; their involvement in national policy arenas (which discuss and decide on national SDG strategies); and the need for locally disaggregated data systems on the one hand, and effective SDG localization strategies on the other hand. It is this aspect which the present publication explores in greater detail by using country examples and conceptual analyses. The text will be of interest to policymakers, scholars, students and practitioners in public policy and public administration, decentralization, and sustainable development, with a focus on the Asia and Pacific region. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO).

Governance and ethics are intertwined. A government functions within certain broad moral and ethical parameters, integrally linked with the sociological foundation of the polity in which it is articulated. The importance of ethics in governance has acquired a significant place in contemporary theoretical discussion. This book situates ethics in governance in India in the national frame and incorporates the context of globalization, allowing for the increasing importance of non-state global actors in national decision making. The author argues that a lack of ethics quickly turns into corruption and leads to governmental efforts to deal with it. He proposes that ethics are a set of standards that a society places on itself to articulate its responses to societal needs, and discusses the efforts of the Indian government at eradicating corruption and its failure. A theoretical approach to the issues of ethics in governance and corruption, this book is of interest to academics in the fields of Asian Politics, in particular Indian politics, and political philosophy.

This edited volume explores the state of inclusive governance in South Asia. It particularly examines the nature and scope of inclusiveness noticed in the parliament and civil service in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, and the judiciary in Bangladesh. Where previous literature has stressed the need for the inclusion of external stakeholders, this volume highlights the importance of the involvement of internal stakeholders. This includes ‘insiders’ such as opposition members and government backbenchers in parliament and specialists in the civil service. The main emphasis is on identifying the extent to which insiders in different institutions have the scope to participate in the governing process. Furthermore, this volume also seeks to assess the implications of inclusiveness/exclusiveness for democratic governance. By exploring the link between inclusiveness and accountability, its contributors are able to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of the existing mechanisms of accountability, particularly social accountability. This innovative collection will appeal to students and scholars of gender and development studies, public policy and administration, international relations, law and political science.

Since its Independence in 1971, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in terms of reducing poverty levels, achieving high levels of economic growth over a sustained period of time, and meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets set by the United Nations. With some justification, Bangladesh is considered an international development success story, and the country appears to be well on track to meet its policy target of becoming a middle-income country by 2021, the same year the country will celebrate 50 years of Independence. This book explores the central issue of Bangladeshi politics: the weakness of governance. The coexistence of a poor governance track record and a relatively strong socioeconomic performance makes Bangladesh an intriguing case which throws up exciting and relevant conceptual and policy challenges. Structured in four sections - Political Settlement, Elites and Deep Structures; Democracy, Citizenship and Values; Civil Society, Local Context and Political Change; Informality and Accountability – the book identifies and engages with these challenges. Chapters by experts in the field share a number of conceptual and epistemological principles and offer a combination of theoretical and empirical insights, and cover a good range of contemporary issues and debate. Employing a structurally determinist perspective, this book explains politics and society in Bangladesh from a novel perspective. Academics in the field of governance and politics in developing countries, with a focus on South Asia and Bangladesh will welcome its publication.

This textbook is a comprehensive, student-friendly guide to public policy in India. It highlights the critical aspects of public policy-making and its implementation by contextualizing it in the Indian historical and modern-day perspective. Public Policy in India: • Provides lucid explanations of theoretical aspects of public policy and its practice in the Indian context; • Captures the complexities in making, implementing and evaluating public policy; • Studies the dialectical interconnection that public policy has with the socio-economic and political environment; • Highlights the influence of culture on public policy; and • Analyses public policy as an outcome of a very complex contextual dialogue involving various kinds of actors. Accessibly written, this book covers a range of university syllabi and will be essential reading for students and researchers of political science and public administration. It will also be indispensable for civil service examinations, including the UPSC.

This book analyses where Sri Lanka stands as a state that has in place liberal democratic state-institutions but exhibits the characteristics of an authoritarian state. Using Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the author argues that Sri Lanka enacted racist legislations and perpetrated mass-atrocities on the Tamils as part of its biopolitics of institutionalising and securing a Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocratic state-order. The book also explores the ways that, apart from military action, power relations produce the effects of battle, and thus the way that peace can often become a means of waging war.

This book examines localism as a political idea and policy approach and explains what localism is about, why it is growing in importance and how it relates to other themes in politics. Illustrated with case studies from the United Kingdom, mainland Europe and the Indian sub-continent, the book analyses localism in conceptual and theoretical terms and locates it within the overall landscape of political thought. Key themes covered in the book include place, space and scale; decentralization and devolution; multi-level governance; public value; democracy and empowerment; and political design. With the focus on the bottom-up, constructivist aspects of localism, the book argues that localism is most likely to work successfully in a political order where sovereignty is ‘distributed’ across various social spheres and levels of government. It offers a comprehensive view of localism by synthesizing its various strands and creating a distinctive framework for design and evaluation. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students and practitioners of localism, particularly within local and regional government, public administration and policy, human and political geography, and urban studies.

An analysis of selective aspects of India’s constitutional identity, this book provides an analytical account of the changing and changed texture of India’s constitutional identity bearing in mind the historical context in which it is articulated. The book conceptualizes the gradual evolution of an idea by tracing the history of India’s constitutionalism with reference to its conceptual roots, historical antecedents and the landmark judicial pronouncements in which the concern for its retention and protection is always privileged. The author examines specific constitutional designs that the 1950 Constitution of India put in place and argues that constitutional identity, despite being drawn on specific constitutional provisions, is also changeable in view of the rapidly transforming socio-economic milieu. He demonstrates that there are numerous instances where India’s constitutional identity has undergone a metamorphosis in circumstances where newer politico-ideological values and norms are privileged. A valuable addition to the literature on constitutionalism and constitutional practices in general and their manifestation in India's democratic experiences, in particular, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Government, Political Science, Law and Jurisprudence, Constitutional and Legal History and Asian Studies.

Global Trade Law Series, Volume 55 India, one of the world’s foremost trading nations, exhibits a particularly complex regulatory landscape with a variety of standard-setting bodies, regulators, accreditation and certification bodies, inspection agencies, as well as several state-level regulators. This is the first book to extensively describe the nature of standard-setting processes in India and the key agencies involved with this task, greatly clarifying the scope of market opportunities in the country. Lucid contributions from experienced practitioners and regulators with first-hand experience in formulating and advising on standards-related issues in international trade help disentangle the web of laws, regulations, operations, and functions of India’s standard setters in governmental, non-governmental, and industry contexts. The chapters describe how standards apply to such crucial trade aspects as the following: conformity assessment practice and procedure; environmental, ethical, social, and safety issues; import bans and import licensing; certification and labelling measures; mutual recognition agreements; food safety; and standardisation of the digital economy. The book is drafted throughout in an easy-to-read style, with numerous tables, flowcharts, and figures illustrating step-by-step compliance procedures. Informative annexes guide the reader to relevant agencies and identify their roles and responsibilities. This book provides a clear and concise guide to the operations, functions, and compliance and documentation requirements of India’s standard-setting and regulatory bodies across all sectors and products, and thus will serve as an unmatched guide for manufacturers, traders, and exporters operating in the Indian market or seeking to export to India. It will also serve as a useful Handbook to policymakers, academics, and researchers interested in understanding the role of standard-setting bodies in the field of international trade.