New Welfare Policy and Democratic Politics in India

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-74461-2
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies

New Welfare Policy and Democratic Politics in India offers an analysis of India’s welfare policy during the last couple of decades. It looks at how welfare policy making is viewed as a function of party competition and voter mobilization, showing a gradual transformation of political clients into entitled citizens through which democratic politics in India has redefined its contemporary welfare discourse.

The book argues that political parties formulate policies in order to respond to the voices of citizens and shows that a new welfare architecture emerged in India, characterized as responsive welfare. India has witnessed a sharp rise in such voices, which have been disadvantaged by a globalizing market. The size and vulnerability of this group has made them politically significant and electorally salient. These welfare aspirants have found a new political space through political parties to negotiate and assert their claims on the state, creating a milestone in India’s democratic politics trajectory, in the form of entitlement-based welfare policy. The book compares and evaluates the implications of these new welfare policies in the contexts of two governments: the Congress-led government during 2009-2014 and the BJP-led government during 20014-2019. The empirical data reveal remarkable similarities in their electoral pledges, policy outputs, policy outcomes and accountability towards citizens. These findings indicate significant convergence in their welfare policies, sans ideology or ethnic support base. It also reveals that the ideological differences among the two major parties do not prevent remarkable continuities in the formulation and implementation of welfare policies during their incumbencies, thus allowing for a bipartisan acceptance of a citizen-centric welfare policy.

Offering a new analysis to understand this citizen-party-policy linkage in the formulation of welfare policy in India, the book presents a macro analysis of India’s interface between democratic politics and welfare policy. It will be of interest to researchers in the fields of the politics of welfare, democratisation in changing societies, comparative politics and Indian and South Asian Studies and Asian Politics.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sarangi, Prakash

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Welfare discourses in India; Chapter 3: Expansion of Welfare Aspirants in India at the Turn of the Century; Chapter 4: Convergence of Welfare Pledges by the Congress and the BJP: 2009-2019 Chapter 5: Welfare Policy Output 2009-19; Chapter 6: Welfare Policy Outcomes 2009-2019; Chapter 7: Responsiveness and Accountability; Chapter 8: Conclusion; Appendices; Index

Über Autor(innen)

Prakash Sarangi is a former Professor of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, India, and a former Vice-Chancellor, Ravenshaw University, India. His academic interests revolve around democratic theory and practice and his publications include Political Exchange and Public Policy, Essays on India’s Political Economy and Liberal Theories of State: Contemporary Perspectives.