Is Government in India Becoming More Responsive? Has Democratic Decentralisation Made a Difference? (SWP 8)

This paper reviews evidence and argument concerning the quality of government in India, especially provision of basic services, and the extent to which democratic decentralization has helped to make government more responsive. As Lant Pritchett has put it, India appears in many ways to be a ‘flailing state’. India is quite clearly not a ‘failing state’ – the central functions of government are often performed with exceptional competence – but the delivery of basic services is generally very poor. The paper explores why poor people, who tend to participate more actively in electoral politics than wealthier people, and who would greatly benefit from better public health, education and other services, do not hold politicians (or the bureaucrats in charge of service delivery) democratically accountable for poor public provisioning. Why has the implementation of progressive social legislation been left substantially to judicial activism? Answers to these questions are found in the idea that India is a ‘patronage democracy’. In these circumstances, government appears most responsive in states with the highest newspaper circulation and a history of lower-class political mobilisation (Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal). Democratic decentralization, through the panchayat system of local government, remains controversial as to its implementation and long-term outcomes, but achievements thus far have been limited

Notes on Teaching International Studies with Novels: Hard Times, Half of a Yellow Sun and The Quiet American (SWP 15)

This essay records efforts over several years of undergraduate teaching to show how the work of creative writers complements the analyses of social scientists and historians to bring home the relevance and human dimension of central questions in international relations and development studies. I assign three novels by very different authors – Charles Dickens, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Graham Green – alongside ‘core’ scholarly texts about the implications of utilitarianism, the politics of ethnicity and the impact of great power intervention during the Cold War. Students’ responses to this self-conscious comparison of two ways of understanding are encouraging. They see vividly how social processes affect people’s lives; explore the mindset and motivations (moral or not) of people living under different circumstances from today; and gain an appreciation of the difficulty of analysing and interpreting one’s own social and political reality

Comparative Notes on Indian Experiences of Social Democracy: Kerala and West Bengal (SWP 39)

This is a draft chapter for a book that compares, in historical perspective, the conditions for democracy, economic development and well-being in India and Scandinavia. Within India, we compare the states of Kerala and West Bengal. Though Kerala has been described as the ‘Scandinavia of India’ for its public actions in favour of citizen rights, land reform, welfare policies and most recently decentralisation, the Left there has not been successful in also fostering interest representation beyond the dominance of parties or building a growth coalition so as to combine economic growth and social justice. The Left has failed to reconcile – through practice, policy or social institutions – the interests of dynamic business, precarious middle classes and underprivileged labour. Kerala’s development has been dominated since the 1990s by the dynamics of globalization, economic liberalism and labour migration, and the full potential of high education levels has remained untapped. Achievements with regard to social justice are more the outcome of broad mobilisations in society than of leftist policies. In West Bengal, after initial improvements in rights and well-being brought by agrarian reform, the Left’s continued reliance on patronage networks and more recently, policies that favoured big companies and external investment, led to stagnation and electoral defeat

Notes on the Differing ‘States’ of Child Undernutrition in Rural India

There are now striking differences between major states of India in terms of their performance in reducing undernutrition among children. This article explores the underlying political and institutional factors that may account for these differences, and shows the strong correspondence between measures of the capacity, responsiveness and accountability of different state governments and their performance in improving the nutrition of children

Structural Stability of Braced Scaffolding and Formwork with Spigot Joints

Steel Scaffolding systems are often constructed from cold-formed circular hollow sections. The beams of this system are normally called ledgers and the columns are normally called standards . To allow the system to be quickly erected on site, spigot joints are inserted in the standards. The spigot joints consist of smaller diameter tubes which slide into the larger diameter tubes to provide a safe connection under gravity load. However, the spigot joints may have a lack of fit, and when located midway between the ledgers, they can cause significant out-of-straightness in a standard. This PΔ effect may weaken the standard as a column and lead to a reduced load capacity of the scaffold system. The paper describes tests on sub-assemblages of scaffolding with and without spigot joints. Concentric and eccentric loading eccentricity was also investigated. The results are compared with a nonlinear inelastic finite element frame analysis (program NIFA) developed at the University of Sydney. The nonlinear analysis included special modelling of the spigot joints. The results are also compared with design capacities computed using the Australian Steel Structures standard AS 4100-1998. Conclusions are given regarding the modelling of the spigot joints and the effect of the spigot joints on the strength of scaffolding systems

Methane flux from the Central Amazonian Floodplain

A total of 186 methane measurements from the three primary Amazon floodplain environments of open water lakes, flood forests, and floating grass mats were made over the period 18 July through 2 September 1985. These data indicate that emissions were lowest over open water lakes. Flux from flooded forests and grass mats was significantly higher. At least three transport processes contribute to tropospheric emissions: ebullition from sediments, diffusion along the concentration gradient from sediment to overlaying water to air, and transport through the roots and stems of aquatic plants. Measurements indicate that the first two of these processes are most significant. It was estimated that on the average bubbling makes up 49% of the flux from open water, 54% of that from flooded forests, and 64% of that from floating mats. If the measurements were applied to the entire Amazonian floodplain, it is calculated that the region could supply up to 12% of the estimated global natural sources of methane

Introduction: Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogies

This introductory session was part of the 2020 Schools of Thought Conference hosted by the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma.This introductory section of the Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogies portion of the Schools of Thought proceedings contains an overview of the session's chairs and included papers.N