Under What Conditions Can Local Government Nurture Indigenous People’s Democratic Practice? A Case Study of Two Ho Village Assemblies in Jharkhand

Siddharth Sareen and Iben Nathan

Journal of Development Studies, 2018, vol. 54, issue 8, 1354-1373

Abstract: This paper asks whether and under what conditions participatory local government can best nurture indigenous peoples’ democratic practice. Based on fieldwork in two similar Ho communities in the Indian state Jharkhand, we show that their village assemblies function differently with regard to meetings, wood access regulation, development projects, and participation. Neither prevents exclusion and co- option. This supports the argument that while local governments can hardly challenge existing power structures, they can under certain conditions nurture democratic practice and democratisation. Our study indicates that high literacy, social cohesion, active state support, and proactive leadership are conditions under which this best happens.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2017.1329523 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:54:y:2018:i:8:p:1354-1373

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2017.1329523

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().