Governance and Governed: Multi-Country Perspectives on State, Society and Development

Building, largely, on insights from India, and case studies in Brazil, China, and South Africa, this book provides insights into the contested topic of ‘governance and governed’ from a state–society inter-relationship perspective. It argues that the centrality of an understanding of state-governance today is rooted in concerns regarding diversities and contingencies of concrete political reality to address inequalities, exclusion and vulnerabilities. These countries are part of the BRICSs consortium, and have been recognised for their growth potential in the world economy. But their economic progress alone may not necessarily translate into a better quality of life. The approach here is not to focus on a particular understanding of governance, but to utilise a wider lens to understand the nature and extent of incremental processes in the different case-study contexts in order to offer a broader framework for procedural and substantive understanding of governance, rather than a prescription of a government and its activity of governing. The focus is on deriving practical lessons about governance process that are of interest to the wider development community.

Madhushree Sekher is a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Institutions, political economy of representation, governance, inclusive development and policy implementation are her core research interests. Her current research is on institutions for food security, inequalities and social welfare systems, and democratic representation in India. She has received a number of grants, including the Australian Research Council (Discovery) Grant. She is currently associated with an international research consortium to study ethnic power relations funded by the Swiss Development Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation. She was a visiting faculty at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)-Washington, the Universities of Hohenheim, Sydney and Alberta, and Cornell University, USA. The author of many research articles and books, she has a PhD in Political Science, and was the recipient of World Bank Robert S. McNamara Fellowship for post-doctoral research.

S. Parasuraman has been the director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, since 2004, and has had a high-profile professional career spanning teaching, research and policy advocacy. He has four decades of experience as a teacher and researcher in Rural Development, Education, Health, Public Policy, Social Protection, Inclusive Development, Governance, Water and Energy. His current research interests include governance and accountability framework for social protection, understanding and addressing agrarian distress, collectives of women and farmers to strengthen livelihoods, capacity building of elected leaders, decentralised governance, corporate social responsibility, and youth for social and economic transformation. He has published extensively on development and disasters. He has held key positions in the World Bank, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Oxfam, Action Aid International and the UN.