Decentralisation, Corruption and Social Capital: From India to the West

Sten Widmalm

ISBN 10: 0761936645 / ISBN 13: 9780761936640

Published by SAGE PUBN, 2008

About this Item

Zustand: Sehr gut | Sprache: Englisch | Produktart: Bücher | Keine Beschreibung verfügbar.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Decentralisation, Corruption and Social Capital: From India to the West
• Publisher: SAGE PUBN
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761936645
• ISBN 13: 9780761936640
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Sehr gut
• Seller catalogs:
  • Bücher

About this title

Synopsis

This book provides fresh perspectives and insights on what may be the world’s largest ongoing decentralisation reforms―the Panchayat Raj reforms in India―and presents unique empirical material from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. Comparative perspectives and references to historical cases from around the world are used to show how decentralisation can be connected to social capital and corruption. In particular, this book shows how certain forms of social capital, previously thought to be a hindrance to development, can work in favour of democracy.

Widmalm argues that there exists a strong and direct connection between degrees of corruption in village performance and the level of trust in society, even though only an ambiguous link can be said to exist between decentralisation and corruption. However, the kind of trust most strongly related to performance is not the kind we would expect from a reading of development literature or from the policies of certain aid agencies. This book shows that the relationship between decentralisation, corruption and social capital can be well understood if illuminated through the prism of collective action theory. Further, it dwells upon the consequences of these research results for aid policies.

Decentralisation, Corruption and Social Capital: From India to the West would be invaluable to aid agencies and development-oriented organisations, as well as students and researchers working in the areas of development, governance, decentralisation, federalism, social capital and civil society.

About the Author

Sten Widmalm is Associate Professor and the Director of the master’s programme in Development Studies at the Department of Government at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. He has worked extensively on politics in South Asia and is currently working on a project funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Uppsala University on ‘Tolerance and Governance in India, Pakistan, Kenya and Uganda’.

He has authored the book Kashmir in Comparative Perspective― Democracy and Violent Separatism in India and has contributed articles to journals such as Asian Survey, Comparative Political Studies, India Review, The Journal of Civil Society and The Journal of Peace Research as well as chapters in several books on South Asia.