Decentralisation and the Changing Geographies of Political Marginalisation in Kerala

Glyn Williams and Binitha V Thampi
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Glyn Williams: Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 1TN, England
Binitha V Thampi: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, India

Environment and Planning A, 2013, vol. 45, issue 6, 1337-1357

Abstract: One of the benefits often claimed for ‘moving’ the state closer to people through the institutional reforms of democratic decentralisation is an improvement in the inclusion of politically marginalised groups. Decentralisation promises to deliver both the closer physical presence of centres of government and the formalisation of practices of representation at the grassroots. These changes in turn are expected to provide opportunities for historically marginalised groups to improve their associational capacities, and to gain recognition as rights-bearing citizens. This idea is examined through the experience of Kerala, which has one of the most thorough programmes of democratic decentralisation within India. Decentralisation has indeed provided new pathways to engage with local government. However, attempts to ‘rescale’ the state to the local level have also reshaped existing institutional channels for representation, political discourses, and everyday state practices, in ways which produce new microgeographies of exclusion. This paper highlights the importance of these everyday experiences of marginalisation for programmes of state reform. It argues that if they are ignored, decentralisation risks reproducing narrow forms of majoritarian localism, and its potential to contribute to building substantive democracy will be lost.

Keywords: decentralisation; governance reform; political space; exclusion; Kerala (South Asia) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:6:p:1337-1357

DOI: 10.1068/a45218

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