Two steps forward one step back: decentralisation as a policy process in India

Abstract

This article argues that decentralisation in India should be seen as a policy process. It is a policy process in the sense that multiple actors and agencies influence the decentralisation process at all levels of the polity. While this may appear as obvious, decentralisation as a policy process requires: (a) analysis of this process not at one level nor as one event but (b) as a series of public policy processes that eventually result in successful or not so successful realisation of decentralisation on the ground.