Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social security. This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world's largest democracy make claims on the state, asking whether, how, and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India, Kruks-Wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action, she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, or village - builds citizens' political knowledge, expectations, and linkages to the state, and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoires of claim-making.
Author(s): Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 318
City: Cambridge
Tags: Area Studies, South Asian Government, Politics and Policy, Asian Studies, Politics and International Relations, Comparative Politics
Machine generated contents note: pt. I INTRODUCTION AND THEORY
1.Introduction: Citizenship and Social Welfare
Claiming Services, Claiming the State
Citizen and State in India
Explaining Active Citizenship
Research Setting
Research Design
Organization of the Book
2.A Theory of Active Citizenship
Claim-Making Conditions
Aspirations toward the State
Capabilities for Action
Social and Spatial Exposure
Scope Conditions
Applying the Theory
pt. II CITIZENSHIP PRACTICE IN RAJASTHAN
3.The Institutional Terrain of the State
Expansion of the Social Welfare Sector
Social Welfare Provision in Rajasthan
Rajasthan in Transition
Going Local
Setting the Stage for Claim-Making
4.Seeking the State: Claim-Making Patterns and Puzzles
The Claim-Making Landscape
Measuring Claim-Making
Disaggregating Claim-Making: What, Where, and Who?
Patterns and Puzzles
5.Encountering the State: Citizens `Social and Spatial Exposure'
Contents note continued: Social and Spatial Boundaries
Boundary Porousness
Increasing Social and Spatial Exposure
Exposure and Claim-Making Aspirations
Exposure and Claim-Making Capabilities
6.Claiming the State: Exposure as a Catalyst for Citizen Action
Testing the Relationship
Analysis and Findings
What Causes What?
Correlates of Claim-Making and Exposure
Aspirations and Capabilities
Isolation and Connectivity
pt. III CONSEQUENCES AND EXTENSIONS
7.The Consequences of Claim-Making
Material Access to Social Welfare
Claim-Making as Quotidian Citizenship Practice
Other Forms of Political Participation
The Changing Face of Clientelism
Rajasthan at a Crossroads
8.Conclusion: Active Citizenship in Rajasthan and Beyond
The Capacity to Aspire
Beyond Community and Locality
The Conditioning Effects of the State
State-Induced and Socially Produced Citizen Action
Building and Sustaining Active Citizenship
Contents note continued: Appendices
Appendix I Research Methodology
Appendix II Correlates of Claim-Making
Appendix III Correlates of Social and Spatial Exposure
Appendix IV Testing the Mechanisms: Aspirations and Capabilities
Appendix V The Consequences of Claim-Making.
