Suchergebnisse

The policy of mandated representation (reservation) for disadvantaged social groups in Indian village councils or Gram Panchayats has been the subject of numerous studies. The implicit, and often unstated, assumption that underlies most of these studies is that the president of the council is the only one who wields effective power. However, the Gram Panchayat is comprised of several elected representatives, each of whom represents a village; and, in principle, a voting mechanism governs decision making within the Gram Panchayat. In this context, the focus on the president as the de-facto decision maker is equivalent to assuming a model of "Sarpanch Raj," or a model of local government where the president (Sarpanch) dominates the council. This model is typically based on the premise that the president of the council possesses –either on account of her informal powers or on account of her formal agenda setting powers- the de-facto power to dominate. However, whether these informal or formal powers of the president translate into such de facto power may well depend on other factors, such as local power structures. Indeed, extensive anecdotal evidence suggest that presidents elected on reserved seats—i.e. members of the disadvantaged Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), and women —face considerable difficulties when they are situated amid representatives who come from powerful castes or belong to the local elite. Whether a Sarpanch Raj is indeed the de facto model of local governance in India is therefore an unanswered empirical question. This paper examines the question of Sarpanch Raj, using a unique data set from 80 Gram Panchayats and 225 villages in the Indian state of Karnataka. We exploit the design of the policy of mandated representation in order examine whether the Sarpanch Raj model is robust to the inclusion of elected representatives of the village council. The model of Sarpanch Raj is critically examined in the context of two key mandates of the Gram Panchayat: public good provision, and the targeting of household-level benefits under various anti poverty programs. The results suggest that the president is not the sole decision maker of the council, and that the council is in fact a more broad-based body where the voices of other elected village representatives matter. Decision making in the council is, however, not one among equals. In particular, the results suggest that the effectiveness of Scheduled Caste representatives depends on the caste of the president. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP32 ; DSGD

Decentralization reforms have been the overwhelming response to failures in the targeting of public resources by the central state in developing countries. The policy debate on decentralization typically revolves around several a priori hypotheses on how the design of formal institutions of local government, such as electoral rules, affects accountability in the provision and targeting of public goods. Yet a growing body of research suggests that many rules that structure political incentives and policy outcomes are informal. Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that informal rules such as legislative norms and clientelism can strongly influence political behavior and policy outcomes. This evidence makes a compelling case for both the impact of these informal institutions on political incentives and their role in complementing formal institutions and shaping the status quo when formal venues are absent or weak. How much do these formal institutions matter? How do they shape policy outcomes? In particular, do they merely substitute for weak or absent formal institutions or do they exist alongside and dominate these formal rules and institutions? In this paper, we examine the effect of informal institutions on decentralized public-resource allocation in Ghana. The decentralization policy debate in Ghana, as elsewhere, typically focuses on the role of formal institutions of local government in the targeting of local public resources. Through a comparative case study of two districts in northern Ghana, we argue that informal institutions, grounded in the rationale of partisan politics of the central state, are the key determinants of decentralized public-resource allocation outcomes. In particular, we show that this political rationale is expressed through an informal model of vote buying, and this vote buying is dictated by a national political agenda. Our findings suggest that ignoring this informal institution is likely to undermine the current efforts to reform decentralized public-resource allocation in Ghana. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP32 ; DSGD

"This paper examines how political institutions and local power structures interact with and influence local public resource allocation in the Indian state of Karnataka. We use data from 80 village councils and 225 villages to examine how this local political economy influences the allocation of public resources. Our empirical strategy exploits certain features of a policy that mandates representation for historically disadvantaged groups, including the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), in village councils. These features imply that representation is a nonlinear function of the demographic shares of these groups. Controlling for the latter allows us to identify the role of local power structures through the effect of social identities and the associated relative bargaining powers of different caste groups. We find that the design of political institutions matters to resource allocation. Although a formula-bound allocation of fiscal grants to the village councils was successfully implemented, the within-council allocation governed by a legislative voting process reveals severe targeting failures. Importantly, we find that these targeting failures reflect elements of elite capture. Villages represented by politicians belonging to the SCs and STs get fewer fiscal resources. We also find evidence that villages represented by the politically dominant castes are likely to get more resources. Taken together, these results suggest that the capture of decentralized institutions by the local elite skews public resource allocation. The results also suggest that the use of a formula might lead to a more equitable intervillage allocation of public resources." --from authors' abstract ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; Subtheme 5.2; GRP37 ; DSGD

Acknowledging that the agricultural sector can play an important role as an engine of pro-poor growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the 'political will' of governments to support this sector. The concept of 'political resources' from the political science literature is used to guide the analysis, as it combines the insights from state-centered and society-centered approaches to explain agricultural policies. Drawing on panel data covering 14 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001, we present empirical evidence showing that political factors play an important role in determining government's commitment to supporting agricultural development. We use a measure of democracy that varies both across countries and within countries over time. Estimates are presented for separate samples of democracies and non-democracies, and for a pooled sample of all countries and years irrespective of the democratic status. Our results suggest that the rural poor do exercise electoral leverage in democracies; larger rural population shares are associated with higher spending on agriculture in democracies but not in authoritarian regimes. We also find evidence consistent with the theoretical prior that larger farmers tend to be better organized in interest groups. Specifically, we find that the share of traditional agricultural exports such as coffee and cocoa in the total value of exports, which may be an indicator for the ability of farmers' to organize themselves as interest groups, induces greater spending on agriculture. This result holds true for both democracies and nondemocracies.

This paper opens the "black box" of real-world deliberation by usingtext-as-datamethods on a corpus of transcripts from the constitutionally mandatedgram sabhas, or village assemblies, of rural India. Drawing on normative theories of deliberation, we identify empirical standards for "good" deliberation based on one's ability both to speak and to be heard, and use natural language processing methods to generate these measures. We first show that, even in the rural Indian context, these assemblies are not mere "talking shops," but rather provide opportunities for citizens to challenge their elected officials, demand transparency, and provide information about local development needs. Second, we find that women are at a disadvantage relative to men; they are less likely to speak, set the agenda, and receive a relevant response from state officials. And finally, we show that quotas for women for village presidencies improve the likelihood that female citizens are heard.

The resurgence of deliberative institutions in the developing world has prompted a renewed interest in the dynamics of citizen engagement. Using text-as-data methods on an original corpus of village assembly transcripts from rural Tamil Nadu, India, this paper opens the "black box" of deliberation to examine the gendered and status-based patterns of influence. Drawing on normative theories of deliberation, this analysis identifies a set of clear empirical standards for "good" deliberation, based on an individual's ability both to speak and be heard, and uses natural language processing methods to generate these measures. The study first shows that these assemblies are not mere "talking shop" for state officials to bluster and read banal announcements, but rather, provide opportunities for citizens to challenge their elected officials, demand transparency, and provide information about authentic local development needs. Second, the study finds that across multiple measures of deliberative influence, women are at a disadvantage relative to men; women are less likely to speak, set the agenda, and receive a relevant response from state officials. Finally, the paper shows that although quotas for women on village councils have little impact on the likelihood that they speak, they do improve the likelihood that female citizens are heard.

Deliberative institutions have gained popularity in the developing world as a means by which to make governance more inclusive and responsive to local needs. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that persistent gender inequality may limit women's ability to participate actively and influence outcomes in these forums. In response, policy makers have tried to induce women's participation by leveraging the group-based format of self-help groups, which can build women's social capital and develop their sense of political efficacy and identity. This paper evaluates the impact of one such intervention, known as the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project, on women's civic participation in rural Tamil Nadu. Using text-as-data methods on a matched sample of transcripts from village assembly meetings, the analysis finds that the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project significantly increases women's participation in the gram sabha along several dimensions -- meeting attendance, propensity to speak, and the length of floor time they enjoy. Although women in the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project villages enjoy greater voice, the study finds no evidence that they are more likely than women in control villages to drive the broader conversational agenda or elicit a relevant response from government officials.

Community based livelihood interventions, which focus directly on increasing income and employment, have become an increasingly important component of large-scale poverty reduction programmes. We evaluate the impact of a participatory livelihoods intervention – the Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Reduction (Pudhu Vaazhvu) Project (PVP) using propensity score matching methods. The paper explores the impact of PVP on its core goals of empowering women and the rural poor, improving their economic welfare, and facilitating public action. We find significant effects of PVP on reducing the incidence of high cost debt and diversifying livelihoods. We also find evidence of women's empowerment, and increased political participation.

Abstract
Obtaining representative information on hosts and displaced populations in a single survey is not straightforward. This article demonstrates the value of combining traditional and nontraditional sampling frames, geospatial information, and listing exercises to design a representative survey of hosts and Rohingya displaced populations in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The article applies innovative segmentation techniques using geospatial data to delimit enumeration areas in the absence of updated cartography. The article also highlights the importance of listing exercises to inform stratification decisions and update population counts.