This book examines the renewed interest and commitment that countries across the world have shown in recent decades towards adopting models of decentralising, or "downsizing" the state, and moving towards more participatory models of government.
It examines systems of decentralised development such as self-managing co-operatives from a global and comparative perspective with a focus on developing countries. Drawing on examples from Kerala and a few other states in India, as well as Cuba, Bangladesh and South Africa among other countries, the book offers critical perspectives on the positive impacts of these experiments and the promises these offer for the future. It discusses the challenges of implementing these models, how well these work in coordination with the civil society and the state, issues of transparency and democratic oversight as well as corruption and capture of power due to entrenched structures of inequality. The volume analyses welfare and development models and self-management interventionsin countering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also looks at the meritsand demerits of decentralisation in countering the global socioeconomic and environmental crisis and the rise of authoritarian populism in many countries.
The book will be of interest to students and researchers of development studies, political science, business, community development, social justice as well as of co-operative management programmes. It will also appeal to students of political economy as well as development professionals, think tanks and policymakers.
Author(s): Joseph Tharamangalam, Jos Chathukulam
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 265
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Acronyms
Chapter 1 Experiments in Deepening Democracy through Decentralised Governance: An Overview
Part I Concepts and Visions: Some Reflections
Chapter 2 Embedded Democracy
Chapter 3 Socialist Construction and Commoning
Chapter 4 Thinking beyond Capitalism
Chapter 5 COVID-19 Context in India and Working towards Alternative Paradigms
Chapter 6 Social Sufferings and Citizenship in the Context of COVID-19
Chapter 7 Democracy and Capitalism in the Time of COVID-19
Part II Decentralised Governance and Development in Comparative Perspective
Chapter 8 Roles of NGOs, State and For-Profit Actors in Improving Maternal and Child Sector in Bangladesh: Towards a Division of Labour?
Chapter 9 Governance, Welfare-Based Development and COVID-19: Sweden and Kerala in Comparative Perspective
Chapter 10 The Cure Remains a Symptom: Sub-national Government, Democracy and Development in South Africa
Chapter 11 Reorienting People’s Planning in Kerala
Chapter 12 The Capacity Conundrum in Decentralisation and Local Governance: How Kerala Tackles It
Chapter 13 Employment Creation at Decentralised Level through Construction of Niche Structure
Part III Experiments in Co-operativism, Decentralised Governance and Self-Management
Chapter 14 From Agricultural Co-operatives to Farmer Producer Companies : Analysing the transition of Co-operativism in India
Chapter 15 Co-operativism to Manage COVID-19
Chapter 16 Cuba’s Experiments with Co-operativism and Solidarity Economies: A Move towards 21st-Century Socialism
Part IV Conclusion
Chapter 17 Lessons and Non-lessons
Index
