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IIM Calcutta, Princeton University & Georgetown University Conference 2017

Political Economy of Emerging Market Countries: The Challenges of Developing More

Humane Societies

January 2-4, 2017, in Santiniketan, West Bengal.

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Polymorphic Regimes or Fragmented Leviathans in India?

Dr. Ashwani Kumar,

Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research & Professor

Center for Public Policy, Habitat & Human Development, School of Development Studies,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai)

Email: ashwanitiss@gmail.com/ashwani@tiss.edu

PS: Kindly do not quote from the draft presentation without the permission of the author.
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Abstract

What explains the prevalence of multiple development trajectories in Indias sub-national

context? Using insights from Esping-Andersens typology of the three worlds of capitalism
and arguing that welfare regimes are neither monolithic nor static as they are shaped by
variable capacity of state and competitive vote-seeking politicians in democracies , this
stylized presentation contests the notion of a national welfare state and proposes to revise
the dominant statist and societal perspectives on the analytical salience of political regimes
and structures of civil society in shaping welfare outcomes in Indias states at the sub national
level.

1. Introduction
All states, barring predatory states, perform some welfare functions to retain not only their
legitimacy, but also to facilitate successful capital accumulation and maintain the necessary
social order. (Habermas, 1975; Esping- Andersen, 1990). India is no exception to this truism.
The country presents an enduring puzzle in the literature and practice of democracy and
development since independence (Chakravarty, 1987; Chatterjee, 1998; Chibber, 2003). The
fabled Nehruvian dirigisme was toppled in 1991 without any chaos or bloodbath. And the so-
called Divided Leviathan turned into a vibrant federal market economy (Sinha 2004;
Jenkins, 1999). Yet, for a majority of people, the tryst with La Dolche Vita (sweet life) is
still out of horizons as India continues to be home to the worlds largest concentration of poor
and has also gained notoriety for prevalence of clientelistic regimes and their highly
inefficient and corrupt public agencies, especially those involved with the delivery of pro-
poor services at the grassroots. (Besley, 2007; Echeverri-Gent, 1993; Krishna, 2008; Bardhan
and Mookherjee 2012)

No wonder, India presents a quintessential case of a flailing state --a nation-state in which
the head, that is, the elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound
and functional but that this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its
own limbs (Pritchett, 2012). However, it would be quite misleading to infer that all
development initiatives/schemes fail in India and it houses only clientelistic regimes.
(Mangla,2014). In fact, there are considerable variations in the performance of Indian states
when it comes to implementing social welfare programmes and policies. This attests to the
increasing legitimacy of politics of programmatic regimes in various states of India. In other
words, given the significant variations in the capacity of states to deliver welfare services to
 3

the poor, some Indian states have performed way better at implementing social welfare
policies than others. However, we are yet to figure out the causal mechanisms that crucially
affect state capacity and autonomy and eventually shape the resultant divergent welfare
outcomes at the local level.

2. Analytical Puzzle
What explains the prevalence of multiple welfare trajectories in Indias sub-national context?
Using insights from Esping-Andersens typology of the three worlds of capitalism, this
stylized presentation proposes to revise the dominant statist and societal perspectives on the
analytical salience of political regimes and structures of civil society in shaping welfare
outcomes in Indias states. It is true that the central government can decisively shape the
performance of centrally sponsored schemes given that it possesses superior resources
(constitutional, institutional, financial, political and symbolic) to set the agenda of national
development and influence development trajectories in states. But its also equally true that
politics in the states or so-called fragmented regional Leviathans have increasingly become
an independent domain and broken free of the logic of national politics. Given the
increased regulatory autonomy of the fragmented and asymmetrical Leviathans have become
more salient in structuring relations between the state and capital in the post-liberal India.
Bureaucratic capacity and leadership choices, electoral and mobilizational incentives
including strategic decisions about economic reforms and welfare are now routinely (both
politically and spatially) structured at the sub-national level. In other words, regional states
are laboratory for investigating the forms and effects of types of political regimes on welfare
and growth in India.(Kohli,1987; Harris 2004)

Using regime theory and extending Przeworski and Limongis classic formulation that
political institutions do matter, we argue that variations in welfare & growth trajectories at
the sub-national level depend crucially on the nature of political regimes and policy
institutions in providing programmatic support, ideological commitment and policy
coordination mechanisms (Przeworski and Limongi, 1993; Mahoney, 2000). Development
researchers and scholars have often linked development or welfare failure to politicians'
use of clientelism, vote buying and political favouritism more generally (Hicken, 2011
Wantchekon, 2003; Vicente and Wantchekon, 2009; Callen et al. 2014). Further, research
also attributes poor implementation of government programs, especially pro-poor programs,
to a failure to incentivize and insulate state officials from locally dominant interests (Benabou
 4

and Tirole 2003; Perry and Wise, 1990). In other words, political origins of growth and
welfare are rarely taken into consideration to account for divergent trajectories of growth and
welfare in the states of India.

Arguments

In light of the major findings in the literature on democracy, welfare state, federalism, civil
society, party politics and politics of redistribution in India, we make the following claims:

Regardless of level of economic development or professed political ideology, variable

capacity of political regimes to deliver social welfare outcomes is a function of an
autonomous sphere of politics in which re-distributional struggles are mediated by
varying degrees of state capacity and autonomy and forms of associational/ civil society
politics at the sub-national level in India.
Although social-democratic regimes or center-left political parties are most likely to be
effective at poverty reduction and attainment of relatively higher welfare outcomes,
political regimes with elite domination- can also be effective providers of pro-poor
welfare services. As regimes are rooted into political incentive structures, we argue that
linking strategies of political parties and class-caste coalitions coincide not always due to
structural reasons, but also due to volitional and electoral reasons.
Examining clusters of polymorphous welfare regimes at the sub-national level, we revise
the ideal type construction of welfare regimes to claim that most regional states are a mix
of clientelistic and programmatic regimes and a more favourable secular upward trend is
noted in social and human development outcomes at the sub-national level.

Rethinking Clientelistic V Programmatic Regimes

Literature from developing and low-income democracies including India suggests that
economic growth and welfare are often adversely affected by clientelism and patrimonialism
as they subvert the rule of law, foster corruption, distort the delivery of public services,
discourage investment and undermine economic progress. (Jackson and Rosberg 1982: 39;
Migdal 1988; Bratton and van de Walle 1997; Bardhan 2012) Consider the specific case of
India; examples of clientelism and elite capture in welfare programs are widespread across
sub-national regimes in India (Lanjouw and Ravallion 1999, Besley, Pande and Rao 2012,
Caeyers and Dercon 2012, Alatas et al. 2013). Designed on particularistic criteria, clientistic
 5

transfers provide an appearance of successful pro-poor targeting of public services. But they
usually come at the expense of long-term development, since they create biases towards
private transfer programs with short-term payoffs rather than public goods or private benefits
of a long-run nature (such as education or health). They are usually implemented to benefit
narrow subsets of intended beneficiary groups (class/ caste/ ethnic) (Bardhan 2012) . Thus, it
is no surprise that clientelism is often a much preferred strategy for politicians seeking to
consolidate their grip over power in a political climate characterized by a high degree of
electoral volatility and political competition. In programmatic regimes, the state adheres to
transparent, rational, legal procedures in economic decisions and implements welfare policies
on universal criteria whereas clientelistic regimes use patrimonial ties in allocation of public
goods and implement social policies in expectation of returns (economic and political) from
targeted/ favoured groups and individuals. Kitschelt (2012) asserts that programmatic
regimes are generally known to have a collective policy position that constitutes well-
structured, predictable and stable political programs. The governments in programmatic
regime have better internal coherence and agreement on a range of policy positions
commitment and the ability to deliver on at least some key programmatic promises when the
regime is in a position of power. Also, programmatic regimes dont often support using
patron client networks, nor make appeals and advocate policies that are critically designed to
achieve the interest of just one group, class or caste or ethnic group. This ensures broader
political appeal and increases electoral winnability and generally suits mutli-class rainbow
political parties. However, we propose that clientelistic and programmatic regimes are ideal
type constructs as democratic politicians everywhere manipulate public funds in order to
cultivate winning political constituency and the narratives about freebies are often far more
complex. In patronage form of competitive democracy where political support is based on
transactions between the client (the people) and the patron (the party in power) citizens are
not passive receiver of welfare freebies or services ; the groups/ communities possess top-
down political connections to the ruling party, as well as exercise high levels of grassroots
democratic mobilisation on local politicians to deliver welfare services. (Aditya 2016)
Scholars of patronage democracy fail to understand that in places like India where lower
class and caste groups and individuals who often swap votes for so-called welfare freebies
consider some forms of clientelism necessary for material and symbolic empowerment and
realizing suppressed social rights. (Chandra; 2004; Jaffrelot 2012) For instance, the
revisionist scholarship on welfare politics does not treat politics of Dravidian parties in
 6

Tamilnadu as a case of clientelistic regime but presents it as an example of a populist

representation of emergent social groups that attained sustained success in ensuring welfare
for poor and also economic performance (Subramanian 1999). Thus, cases of clientelism in
the state of Tamilnadu are actually examples of vigorous political competition between the
Dravidian parties around a combination of empowerment populism and populist
clientelism reflecting shared meanings of region, language, sub-nationalism and an ideology
of anti-Brahmanism in south India (Swamy, 1996; Subramanian 1999) In fact, competitive
populist clientelism has moderated the potential of ethnicity to generate disintegrative social
conflict and also enhanced the administrative efficiency of the local state in
Tamilnadu(Subramanian 1999). Thus, not all forms of clientelism are pernicious to welfare
and detrimental to the capacity of the state.
Based on analysis of clusters of regimes at the sub-national level in India, we argue that in
embedded regimes (programmatic or clientistic), bureaucratic capacity of the state is
relatively high and autonomous leading to governance that encourages economic
development and also better redistributive outcomes. Thus, using methods of comparative
historical institutional analysis in conceptualizing polymorphic regimes across major states
in India, we modify the original typology of Esping Anderson and explain varying
developmental trajectories of social democratic, developmental, patrimonial, competitive
populist, predatory and transitional forms of regimes at the sub-national level in India. (Kohli,
1987, 2012; Bardhan 1999; Harris, 2003; Heller, 2000; Tilin etc. 2015)

3. Theory and Practice of Regimes in India

The term regime is used quite loosely in the context of regional politics. It is often applied to
a particular government or the party in power as in the Telugu Desam regime in Andhra
Pradesh (Harriss 1999). Thus, regime types in India closely reflect the nature of the ruling
party. The ideology, organisation and class alliances underlying a particular regime are of
considerable consequence for growth and redistributive performance. (Kohli, 1987). In his
seminal study of three Indian states -West Bengal, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, Atul Kohli
argues that in Indias context, a well organised, left-of-centre regime (West Bengal, for
example) is most effective at delivering a high degree of welfare than all other regime types.
Surprisingly Kohli did not explain how multiple patterns and trajectories of growth (stealth or
otherwise) happened. Recently, Kohli, Harriss and Heller have identified and sought to
explain the existence of distinct state-level regimes that run the full gamut from elite
domination to populist and redistributive to neo-patrimonial (Patrick Heller; 2011; Kohli,
 7

2012). Following an agnostic perspective on the nature of regime, Dreze and Sen have
documented large differences in social development across states largely in terms of social
expenditure and redistributive pressures from civil society. And they detected a causal link
between redistributive outcomes feeding into capabilities that eventually lead to higher
economic growth (Sen & Dreze 2013).
There is another line of argument which asserts that the multiple trajectories of growth and
welfare and the varying patterns of authority in Indian states have more to do with the
mobilization of lower castes and classes into the political process than the ideology and
organizational bases of ruling parties. (Frankel & Rao 1990; Church 1984). Church in his
path-breaking analysis of state politics in India argues that patterns of politics in different
states need to be understood in terms of the extent and mode of mobilization of the lower
castes. States in which lower castes have come to occupy positions of power in the legislature
also tend to have governments that address the substantive concerns of the poor, at least to
some extent (Church 1984). Building on Churchs argument, Harriss (2003) goes on to make
the claim that states in which the dominance of the upper castes and the Congress party have
been challenged, have also been largely successful in addressing welfare concerns. Despite
the absence of well-organised, left-of-centre parties, states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil
Nadu described as populist regimes have performed well in reducing levels of poverty
(ibid).

At a historical moment when the Indian state has decisively assumed a pro-business
character, high rates of economic growth have coincided with higher levels of welfare,
mainly driven by electoral pressures (Kohli 2012). In this context, Kohli modifies his original
thesis on regime, arguing that certain development tendencies have been noticed across
Indian states Developmental (Gujarat), Social- Democratic (Kerala) and Neo-patrimonial
(Uttar Pradesh), with their developmental outcomes being contingent on the underlying state
and caste/class relations. (Kohli 2012)

In their recent work Politics of Welfare, Tillin et al (2015) offer rich insights into the
variegated performance of social policies across a representative range of states in India. The
analysis factors in variables like nature of political leadership, capacity and autonomy of the
bureaucracy, strength of civil society organisations and organised interest groups and their
relationship with the state. Relying more on the significance of these variables in
guaranteeing social rights than the ideological commitment of political parties, the authors
 8

have come up with six broad clusters of sub-national regimes the first cluster consists of
states traditionally classified as social democratic states or are consistent welfare performers.
The second cluster is termed as Competitive Populist regimes, consisting of states such as
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in which there are underlying social support for
redistributive policies on universal lines. The third cluster is labelled as Incorporationist,
defined in terms of interest incorporation of dominant classes and castes and consisting of
states such as Orissa and Chhattisgarh which continue to be dominated by narrow socio-
economic elites and in which lower castes/classes are poorly organised, yet such regimes are
successful in implementing social welfare programmes. The fourth cluster consists of pro-
business regimes in which states prioritize economic growth over social welfare. The fifth
cluster of Competitive Clientelist regimes (as the typology suggests) comprises states such
as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh that follow a clientelistic mode of providing welfare services in
the backdrop of politicization of lower castes***. The last cluster, termed as Predatory
includes states such as Jharkhand in which state power is personalised for private gain and
the regime lacks a sense of public purpose. The latest contribution to this literature adds a
novel, psychological element to the enhancement of welfare. Singh (2015) in her latest work
How Solidarity works for Welfare puts forth a causal explanation of how the notion of sub-
nationalism is a strong factor which enhances social sector indices. In a comparative-
historical framework which includes five states of India, she traces the rise of sub-
nationalism and how it led to a corresponding improvement in welfare outcomes. This helps
us explain why welfare levels rose in Kerala, on the edifice of a strong pan-Malyalali
identity and not in Uttar Pradesh, where no such identity formation took place.

4. Analytical Framework: Polymorphic Regimes in India

Combining structural and volitional factors ( class/caste with political and electoral
incentives), our analytical framework makes a novel contribution to both comparative and
India-specific literature because most scholarly investigations of regimes are growth
centric and focus on national level variables. Also and more importantly, they hardly make
any reference to redistributive struggles that shape the capacity and autonomy of the state at
the grass roots. We present a typology of polymorphic regimes based on various influential
sources (cited above) as well as our own modest contributions. In our framework, we focus
on the following characteristics of regimes - ideology and nature of political leadership, the
underlying caste/class basis of the regime, nature of party competition- linking strategies with
masses/voters either through programmatic or patronage strategies, degree of mobilisation of
 9

lower castes/classes (nature of civil society) and the capacity and autonomy of the
bureaucracy to design and implement policies of growth and welfare. Also, we have modified
the idea of a regime by incorporating the notion of HDI (Human Development Index) as it is
a variable used across similar constitutional and institutional systems of policy making and
implementation. Thus, we argue that growth and well-being of citizens have more to do with
-the nature of the ruling coalition, bureaucratic autonomy and diverse trajectories of
redistributive struggles than with any linear patterns of economic growth or social
development.

5. Conclusion: Many Regimes or Fragmented Leviathans?

Studying polymorphic regimes not only presents the curious cases of redistributive
struggles but also raises the issue of how democratic politicians in states have handled the
challenges of reconciling pro-market reforms with welfare regimes. The records of long
term democratic stability and institutionalization of rules of coalitional consensus on modes
of governance in the states suggest that democratic politicians in the states have mastered the
art of harnessing the long term benefits of Indias democracy with the illiberal politics of
economic reforms. Thus, though neither the big capitalists nor the organized labour has the
political influence or inclination to compel the dominant class/caste interests , politicization
of welfare has become central to structuring electoral outcomes in the post-liberalization
India since 1991.
Students of political economy have often considered redistributive struggles and economic
reforms as threatening the social order and underestimated the impact of democratic politics
in moderating the pernicious effects of pro-market reforms. Also, economists often ignore the
fact that welfare programs create a political resource that shapes the strategic behaviour of
regimes providing opportunities for patronage and corruption but also encouraging
government officials and politicians to pay more attention to the less privileged sections of
society leading to redistribution of development expenditures to the poor( Echeverri 1988).
As the National Election Study (NES) data show, unless the newly mobilized social groups,
primarily represented by lower castes or regional parties, (who often capture state power
and reserved jobs), consider pro-market reforms in terms of political resource/incentive to
win elections, the future of economic reforms will be uncertain. Thus, a modicum of
patronage or clientistic transactions will continue to structure the complex relationship
between growth and welfare in the states of India. This augurs well for the legitimacy of the
 10

paradigm of growth with distribution or development with redistribution but also exposes
us to the limitations of democratic politics as India continues to grapple with incremental
gains rather than direct abolition of poverty. When political fragmentation along class, caste,
ethnic and regional lines becomes the only winnable strategy, it increases the appeal of
clientelistic regimes and makes collective action on long-term policy commitments more
difficult, thereby interrupting the progress of market reform and welfare performance. In this
context, the capacity of the state and bureaucratic autonomy both at the center and also the
lowest rungs and political commitment to welfare) matter the most in shaping the
trajectories of welfare regimes in India.

In short, we argue that the success or failure of redistributive policies/programs lies not in the
clichd organized left- of--centre regime or unitary/ordered national developmental state,
but in the mutually recursive relations between relatively autonomous political regimes and
sufficiently robust civil society at the grassroots. Results from recent parliamentary and state
elections point out those democratic politicians in the states routinely face the pressures of
accommodating aspirational classes and poor masses within the constraints of democratic
politics. (Varshney 1999). And this is further corroborated by the increasing trends of
politicians from the ruling and opposition parties trying various permutations and
combinations of clientelistic and programmatic regimes as the most preferred strategy of
winning elections and also mitigating the challenges of popular pressures of reconciling
growth and welfare.
Conciliating conflicting interests by democratic politicians from center-left right at the
sub-national level is perhaps one of the least noted achievements of democracy in India.
Credit must be given to the politics of regimes as an art of the possible that has led to
conjunction or divergence of welfare performance and pro-market reforms in Indias states.
The revolution of rising expectations in India is neither a threat to democracy nor a
hindrance to long term sustainability of social development and economic reforms. In other
words, the relationship between capital and democracy is not always inherently prejudicial to
reorganization of bases of social organization of society if one seriously takes the evidence of
the increasing salience of regional political regimes, forms of associational life and the
variegated trajectories of development in Indias states. Thus, its no surprise that though the
fate of redistributive policies or growth is decided at the lowest level of Indias federal
 11

structure, the ruling elite in Luytens Delhi fantasize about creating a dream world of
cashless society!

Table 1: Regime Clusters of States in India

State Regime Nature of Civil Economic Indicators
Characteristics Society (Human Development
Index*)

Kerala, West Characterised as These states have a Both Kerala (1st Rank)
Bengal/ Social democratic historical tradition and Tamil (8th Rank)
Tamil Nadu regimes (Kohli, of mobilisation of Nadu with their
1989) with a direct, lower castes/classes respective HDI scores
programmatic appeal (except West of 0.825 & 0.629 show
on universal criteria Bengal) and lower a relatively high degree
to lower castes/classes form of realisation of
castes/classes. In the core social base welfare. But West
such regimes, lower of the ruling Bengal (13th rank) with
castes/classes are party/alliance. a score of 0.560 is
well represented and below the national
the dominance of the average.
Congress party has
been strongly
challenged. Of late,
West Bengal has
come to be
represented by
center-left party with
less programmatic
appeal to lower
castes/classes
However, with
overwhelming
consensus on
 12

welfare in the
political sphere,
these states have a
relatively effective
bureaucracy
committed to
welfare
Gujarat, Characterised as Low degree of Maharashtra (7th Rank)
Maharashtra Developmental mobilization of with a HDI score of
states (Kohli, 2012) lower castes/classes, 0.631has attained a
with organic links mostly inter-mediate relatively high level of
between the political castes/classes, lower welfare but Gujarat (11th
elites and economic castes are usually Rank) lags behind the
elites. Pro-Business co-opted into the national average
Leadership in these ruling party/alliance. exhibiting a low level of
states hailing from But in Maharashtra welfare attainment.
intermediate castes has witnessed a
shows weak certain mobilisation
commitment to of lower castes and
welfare. Politics in Dalits.
these states is
usually bipolar and
the Congress Party/
along with its allies
is a viable political
alternative. The
relatively effective
bureaucracy is
committed towards
pro-growth policies.

Rajasthan, Characterized as In the absence of a Karnataka has attained a

Karnataka and Reformist regimes, high degree of relatively high level of
Andhra Pradesh reform-oriented mobilization of welfare (9th Rank) with
 13

leadership with a lower castes/classes, a HDI score of 0.615;

strong welfare lower caste leaders Andhra Pradesh (15th
inclination. These are co-opted by the Rank) & Rajasthan (17th
are states marked by political parties. Rank) fall below the
a two-party system Although, Rajasthan national average with
and the Congress is characterized by HDI scores of 0.570 and
secures power in high redistributive 0.499 respectively.
alteration. Despite a struggles of poor
low degree of facilitated by civil
representativeness of society
lower castes and organisations,
classes, a relatively whereas Karnataka
efficient and and AP have
autonomous accommodated
bureaucracy has lower classes/ castes
ensured a modicum in the ruling alliance
of welfare. of political parties.

Madhya Pradesh, Characterised as Low degree of Madhya Pradesh (19th

Chhattisgarh, Incorporationist social mobilization Rank), Chhattisgarh
Odisha and Regimes (Tillin, of lower (23rd Rank), Orissa (22nd
Jharkhand 2015); Market- castes/classes, Rank) & Jharkhand
friendly leadership except in Jharkhand, (18th Rank) are poor
with a strong which has witnessed performs in attaining a
commitment to a relatively high high degree of welfare
welfare; these states level of mobilization with respective HDI
are characterized by among Scheduled scores of 0.470, 0.430,
leadership hailing Tribes. However, 0.450 and 0.471
from a narrow socio- Chhattisgarh, respectively.
economic base. The Odisha and
party system in these Jharkhand are also
states is relatively mineral-rich states
less fragmented and face predatory
 14

(varying from struggles rather than

bipartyism to multi- redistributive
partyism) with the struggles on the
Congress party revenue extractions
having a strong from mines. This
presence on the has contributed to
electoral landscape. weak bureaucratic
Capabilities of the capabilities and
bureaucracy also dispersed autonomy
vary between states. in ensuring robust
welfare outcomes.
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar These states can be These states have Uttar Pradesh (20th
characterized as experienced a high Rank) & Bihar (21st
Transitional degree of Rank) are poor
Regimes as there has mobilization of performers with low
been a shift in the lower castes/classes, levels of welfare and
framework for which is now in its HDI scores of 0.457 and
welfare provision second phase of 0.455 respectively.
from a patron-client social justice (the
(Tillin, 2015) to a mobilization of
post-clientelistic intermediate castes
one***. The in the 1990s has
leadership in these been followed by
states, hailing from a the mobilization of
lower caste/class Dalits and other
base has lent a pro- lower castes in
poor orientation to recent years)
these regimes.
Previously termed as
neo-patrimonial
(Kohli, 2012),
leadership in these
states have
cultivated a wider
 15

social base, thereby

expanding the scale
of welfare provision
beyond the particular
castes/ classes But
the bureaucracy is
characterized by
weak capabilities.
Punjab & Haryana Characterised as Low degree of Punjab (5th Rank) and
Conservative Agro- mobilization of Haryana (10th Rank)
Capitalist regimes; lower castes/classes have relatively high
leadership in such though high welfare outcomes with
states hailing from percentage of dalits HDI scores of 0.667 and
dominant/ /elite and other 0.612 respectively. Thus
castes/classes with marginalized , Punjab and Haryana
ethnic dominance is groups. present a curious case
pro-market and with where high level of
weak welfare economic development
commitments. ensured high level of
Congress Party in HDI- this proves
both the states is a Wilenskys thesis that
serious contender for economic development
power and the party ensures social
system is relatively development(Wilensky
less fragmented 1975)
(varying between
bipartyism to mutli-
partyism)

***post-clientelistic" policies are those policies where politicians or bureaucrats have little
scope and incentive for clientelistic capture and rent-seeking; Bihar, MP, Odisha, Rajasthan
have shown trends towards post-clientelistic" policies.

*The HDI is a composite index, consisting of three indicators- consumption expenditure (as a
proxy for income), education and health. India Human Development Report 2011: Towards
 16

Social Inclusion (HDR 2011) published by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research,
Planning Commission of India estimates the HDI for the beginning of the decade, and for the
latest year for which data permits. The top five ranks go to the states of Kerala, Delhi,
Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab in 2011-12. States that perform better on health and
education outcomes are also the states with higher HDI and thus higher per capita income. At
the other end of the spectrum are mostly the northern and eastern states Chhattisgarh,
Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan that have an HDI
below the national average. Poverty rates are highly contested so we use figures from the
Tendulkar panel. The Human Development approach has long argued that although income is
important, it needs to be complemented by more direct measures (Anand and Sen 1997). A
closer examination of these states past and current investments in social protection, health,
and nutrition programs can help inform the debate on policy instruments to protect
populations against hunger even in the face of poverty as economic growth is not necessarily
associated with poverty reduction. Additionally, even if equitable economic growth improves
food availability and access, it might not lead immediately to improvements in child nutrition
and mortality, for which more direct investments are required to enable rapid reduction. There
are other sources also for computing HDI and poverty reduction. For instance, Jean Dreze &
Ritika Khera, Regional Patterns of Human and Child Deprivation in India EPW, September
29, 2012 No 39. Sabina Alkire and her colleagues at Oxford University, Multidimensional
Poverty Index (MPI). Briefly, the idea is that poverty manifests itself in different kinds of
deprivation lack of food, shelter, sanitation, schooling, health care, and so on.[ There are
more MPI poor people in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries
combined. Some 421 million people in the Indian States of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,
Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal live in multidimensional
poverty; the 26 poorest African countries are home to 410 million MPI poor people. India has
experienced strong economic growth in recent years, yet the MPI reveals that extensive acute
multidimensional poverty persists (Sabina; 2014)

@Disclaimer: The presentation is more of a research note rather than a paper and it is part of
an evolving manuscript on studying welfare regimes in India at the sub-national level.
Notes and References
1. Clientelism; According to Bardhan and Mookherjee (2012), "Clientelism refers to strategic
transfers made by political parties and governments to poor and disadvantaged groups as a means of
securing their votes, in an effort to consolidate political power. By their very nature such transfers
 17

provide an appearance of successful pro-poor targeting of public services. But they usually come at
the expense of long-term development, since they create biases towards private transfer programs
with short-term payoffs at the expense of public goods or private benefits of a long-run nature (such
as education or health)

https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/political-clientelism-and-capture
2. Types of populism and forms of clientelism;

Empowerment populism holds that the people have been robbed by an alien and privileged elite, and
the leading segments of .the people. will redress these grievances by attacking the sources of
disprivilege.
Protection populism holds that the people have been robbed by selfish special interests and it is the
role of the elite or of the government, to keep those interests in check and to protect and to provide for
the poor.
Assertive populism; under this excluded groups are urged to assert themselves against the
discrimination which they have faced (partly focussed in Tamilnadu by agitations over the
Language issue), and to secure entitlements (to education, jobs, loans, subsidized producer goods and
sometimes small pieces of property). Demands are presented as being made on behalf of the popular
community. Paternalist populism appeals more strongly to the lower strata. (including perhaps
mainly, the dalits) and women, who are often unable to assert their demands independently. For
instance, framing welfare as the distribution of public and club goods is it Amma canteens,
subsidized salt or goods such as grinders and mixers which have been distributed during the All India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime as also similar initiatives during the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) regime in Tamilnadu helps it reach the people beyond sectional
interests. The efficiency of the delivery of goods and services in both the regimes has been very high.
(Subramanian, N (1999) Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: political parties, citizens and
democracy in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press; Swamy, A (1996) The Nation, the People
and the Poor; sandwich tactics in party competition and policy formation, India 1931-1996.
Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley; Swamy, A, Parties, Political
Identities and the Absence of Mass Political Violence in South India., in a book edited by Atul Kohli
and Amrita Basu (OUP, Delhi 1998).Basu, A and Kohli, A (eds) (1998) Community Conflicts and the
State in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press

3. Patronage democracy is a democracy in which the state monopolizes access to jobs and services,
and in which elected officials have discretion in the implementation of laws allocating the jobs and
service at the disposal of the state. (Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and
Ethnic Head Counts in India. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004)

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