The Globalizing State, Public Services and the New Governance of Urban Local Communities in India: A Colloquium

Abstract

This colloquium brings together field research from six Indian states in order to examine the impact of globalization-related governance reform on public service delivery in the areas of health, education, and sanitation in Indian cities. Globalization-led governance reforms have been experienced by both advanced industrialized states as well as developing or industrializing states. They pose challenges to established institutions of policymaking as well as to the public policy scholarship about governance mechanisms and processes. Governance debates have become the locus of policy dilemmas in the advanced states. In developing nations, these take on the additional complex character of providing solutions to socio-economic problems faced by large populations that experience debilitating levels of poverty. Reforms in urban governance have been a major characteristic of the post-liberalization period in India, marking a shift in focus from rural development to strategies based on developing urban spaces. Several assumptions about the reforms instituted are explored in the research presented here. The assumptions are that governance reforms will produce more efficiency in terms of cost effectiveness, delivery systems, and greater inclusion in the delivery of the objectives of urban development policy, and urban governance will be more transparent and accountable to the stakeholders, and more participatory in decision-making and implementation of programmes.