The state is often associated with the use of force. In 'Capacity beyond Coercion', Susan L. Ostermann explains variation in compliance with conservation, education, and child labor regulations across the open India-Nepal border. In so doing, she demonstrates that coercively weak states can significantly increase compliance by behaving pragmatically and designing legal implementation strategies around known barriers to compliance, such as imperfect legal knowledge. Given that many states have weak enforcement capacity, the findings in this book point a way forward for more effective and responsive governance throughout the developing world.
The sociolegal compliance literature, which suggests that compliance is motivated by fear, duty, or social license pressure, relies on assumptions that are often specific to the developed world. Are developing world conditions, including low state capacity, not conducive to regulatory compliance? Along the open India–Nepal border, I examine variation in compliance with wood‐taking regulations in contiguous conservation areas located in different countries. I find that widespread poverty, which makes the cost of compliance for large swaths of the population extraordinarily high, significantly reduces compliance rates. I go on to show that there are policies that even cash‐strapped, weakly‐institutionalized states can adopt that make compliance more affordable. These policies, and the resulting programs, are associated with much higher levels of compliance.
Public institutions in the developing world are often characterized by institutional capture or decay. Yet, India's Election Commission (EC) has become one of its most powerful regulatory bodies. We use a process‐tracing approach to explain the EC's surprising expansion of mandate, arguing that in a federal democracy: (a) when institutional constraints are weakened, (b) when state‐based actors demand a competent and neutral arbiter, and (c) when entrepreneurial bureaucratic actors take advantage of moments of political opportunity, those aspects of the bureaucracy that can credibly meet these demands are able to successfully expand their powers. Changes in Model Code Implementation and Election Duration attest to the EC's broader role. The EC's experience suggests that a weak executive can facilitate the strengthening of state institutions and that, under federalism, state‐based electoral forces can produce strong national institutions.
It has become commonplace to attribute the BJP's victory in the 2014 Indian general elections to Narendra Modi. In this article we unravel the Modi effect and argue that Modi's success is tied to his ability to attract 'vote mobilizers'—individuals who campaign for the party—to the BJP. In 2014, the BJP had more mobilizers than any other party. The BJP also had more vote mobilizers in 2014 than in 2004, while the Congress had fewer. However, these mobilizers, while capable of increasing both turnout and vote share for their chosen party, display little party loyalty or partisanship. Instead, they are drawn to a winning candidate or party. Since it is 'winnability' that motivates mobilizers, their support for a party is shallow and, potentially, fleeting. We conclude by claiming that the BJP's victory is more fragile than many assume.
Les mutilations/excisions génitales féminines (MGF/E) sont reconnues mondialement pour être associées à des risques à la fois pour la santé physique et psychologique des filles et des femmes ; elle est également considérée comme une violation des droits de l'homme. À l'heure actuelle, on estime que 200 millions de filles et de femmes dans 30 pays ont subi des MGF/E et jusqu'à 30 millions de filles de moins de 15 ans sont à risque. Une réponse politique commune aux MGF/E consiste à promulguer des lois et à faire respecter les interdictions pénales. Cette note d'orientation résume les principales conclusions d'une étude transfrontalière de deux pays voisins : le Burkina Faso, qui a une loi forte sur les MGF/E, et le Mali, qui n'a pas de loi spécifique sur les MGF/E. L'objectif de l'étude transfrontalière était d'explorer et de comparer les attitudes et les tendances envers le respect de la loi et la poursuite des pratiques de MGF/E et de comprendre l'efficacité du droit pénal dans la lutte contre les MGF/E dans les deux pays. --- Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is recognized globally for being associated with risks to both the physical and psychological health of girls and women; it is also considered to be a violation of human rights. At present, an estimated 200 million girls and women in 30 countries have undergone FGM/C and as many as 30 million under-15 girls are at risk. A common policy response to FGM/C is to enact laws and enforce criminal prohibitions. This policy brief summarizes key findings from a cross-border study of two neighboring countries: Burkina Faso, which has a strong FGM/C law, and Mali, which has no specific FGM/C law. The aim of the cross-border study was to explore and compare attitudes and tendencies toward obeying the law and continuing FGM/C practices and to understand the effectiveness of criminal law in combatting FGM/C in both countries.
Conservative Indian political thought, in addition to being alive and well in contemporary discourse, has a long lineage. We explore the intellectual roots of this tradition by examining older and more contemporary writings ranging from the Manusmriti and the Ramayana to those of Gandhi and Maududi and place them in contrast to those of more liberal thinkers like Ambedkar and Nehru. We find that, in particular, the conservative idea of the 'limited state' has an extensive history embedded in sub-continental religions, religious practices and social norms. Central to the concept of the limited state is the belief that the state is subservient to society, the belief that dharma is ontological prior to the state, the belief that the king or leader must preserve the social order and the belief that individual reform is the primary source of social change. An understanding of this set of beliefs, and the idea of the limited state more generally, is important not only for understanding India's past, but also for insight into contemporary politics. We demonstrate the continued vitality of these concepts through an examination of recent National Election Studies (NES) and World Values Survey (WVS) data.
AbstractAdoration for fair skin color and bias against dark skin color are strong in Indian society. The theory of colorism suggests that, irrespective of a voter's own phenotype, voters prefer lighter- to darker-skinned candidates. And yet, a substantial number of dark-skinned politicians get elected into office in India. In the first systematic study of voter preferences for candidate skin color in India, we conducted a survey experiment in which respondents were randomly administered one of three treatments based upon candidate skin tone: fair, wheatish (medium-brown), and dark. We find only weak evidence for colorism in the sample as a whole—the fair candidate is supported more than the dark and wheatish candidates, but at only marginal significance levels. This is because color preferences are heterogeneous amongst respondent groups. Dalits and the poor, groups that are darker relative to other groups and have been politically mobilized, exhibit much stronger support for dark candidates than other groups, consistent with a desire for descriptive representation. Amongst those who do not belong to these two groups, including dark respondents, the fair candidate finds more support than the dark candidate. This shows that even in the absence of skin color-based electoral appeals, skin color can emerge as an implicit marker of politically mobilized identities, and that this mobilization can undercut colorism.
