International Journal of Social and Economic Research
Year : 2011, Volume : 1, Issue : 1
First page : ( 1) Last page : ( 12)
Online ISSN : 2249-6270.

A critical governance issue for inclusive growth: is ‘citizen centric’ participation possible?

Pellissery Sony¹, Associate Professor

¹Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Email: sony.pellissery@stx.oxon.org

Online published on 31 January, 2012.

Abstract

A good number of institutions have been created at macro and meso level to promote and elicit participation since 1970s. Many of these institutions gave representation to the local elites. Thus, in the process of eliciting participation, these elites became alternative power centres to bureaucracy. However, presently these institutions are undergoing tremendous transformation due to the shifts in development aims and processes. One of the most important changes is that of ‘dismantling of State’ in the arena of welfare provisioning and changes which followed it. Growth of welfare provisioning by agencies other than State redefined the role of local elites in a significant way. This paper is looking at how the role of local elites is determining the levels of participation in the new context of emergence of multiple agencies of welfare provisioning. We argue that welfare provisioning by multiple agencies will not substantially improve unless mechanisms to contain the power of elites are seriously designed and implemented by these agencies.

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