Digital governance and the reconstruction of the Indian anti-poverty system

Silvia Masiero

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: On a global scale, programmes of social protection for the poor are becoming increasingly computerised, and architectures of biometric recognition are being widely used in this respect. I research how these architectures, adopted in anti-poverty systems, structure ways to ‘see the state’ for citizens living in poverty. To do so I study India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala, which is augmenting its main food security scheme with the computerised recognition of its users. In the government’s narrative, biometric technology is depicted as an optimal solution to the illicit diversion of PDS goods on the market. Nevertheless, according to the multiple narratives collected across the state, beneficiaries dispute this view in different ways because of the mixed effects of the new technology on their entitlements under the PDS. The government’s capability to reconstruct its image through digital innovation is thus found to be constrained by citizens’ perceptions derived from their encounters with the new technology of governance.

Keywords: Asia; India; food security; public distribution system; biometric technologies; social policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Oxford Development Studies, 16, November, 2016, pp. 1-16. ISSN: 1360-0818

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68483/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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:ehl:lserod:68483

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().