[Pen-l] Is India a Flailing State?

[michael perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

any comments?



"Is India a Flailing State?: Detours on the Four Lane Highway to
Modernization"
    HKS Working Paper No. RWP09-013


 Contact:  LANT PRITCHETT
             Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of
             Government, Center for Global Development
   Email:  lant_pritchett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Auth-Page:  http://ssrn.com/author=435036

Full Text:  http://ssrn.com/abstract=1404827

ABSTRACT: India is an emerging global superpower as its rapid
growth has transformed its economy and has maintained itself as
the world's largest democracy. But at the same time India lags in
many dimensions—its malnutrition rate is one of the highest in
the world, its immunization rates are lower than most African
countries, and Bangladesh has a better infant mortality rate. I
argue that this is in part because the India state is "flailing"
- its very capable head is not longer reliably connected to the
arms and legs of implementation. In the four-fold transition of
economy, polity, administration, and society the administrative
capability of the state is lagging. I use examples from services
like health, education, and routine transactions like issuing
driver's licenses to show that the agents of the state routinely
do not implement the tasks they are assigned - causing a massive
divergence between de jure and de facto reality. The paper
concludes with speculations about the causes of flailing and
possible future trajectories.


I confess not to have read it yet.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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