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Participation, Social Interaction, and the Quality of Democracy
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Is the responsiveness to citizens’ demands by governments on the state level affected by different kinds of political participation? Is it affected by everyday social interaction in villages and towns? And does political participation and social interaction have different impacts have different impacts depending on historically evolved political structures? The paper builds on a unique data set of personal interviews with 3,200 respondents in five different states in India, covering 31 different rural and urban localities.
The literature and important policy formulators such as the World Bank assumes that decentralisation will bring many benefits, including an enhanced responsiveness by governments to citizens’ demands and wishes. The latter assumption is borne out by our data from India seen in Table 1. We asked our respondents in five states – Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala, and West Bengal – “How interested do you think the central government is in the needs of people like yourself?” And we posed the same question for the political level of state, district, and block (the lowest administrative level) using a five-point scale from “very interested” to “not at all interested”. Table 1 reports a “balance index” which is calculated by adding the percentage saying “very interested” and “quite interested” and then subtracting the percentage saying “not so much interested” and “not at all interested”. The middle response “neither interested nor uninterested” is hence not counted.
Table 1. Index of perceived government responsiveness;
Level of government and states in India
Level of government:Central
State
District
Block
ALL
-1 -1 8 21
GUJ
7
7
34
16
UP
-31
-31
-38
-19
ORI
-19
-16
2
14
KER
1
26
24
40
WB
-1 10
31
51
In this paper I want to argue and show that it is not only the level of government and regime type that matter for government responsiveness, but also the political participation and social interaction among citizens.
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| | Authors: Blomkvist, Hans. |
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2
Is the responsiveness to citizens’ demands by governments on the state
level affected by different kinds of political participation? Is it affected by
everyday social interaction in villages and towns? And does political
participation and social interaction have different impacts have different
impacts depending on historically evolved political structures? The paper
builds on a unique data set of personal interviews with 3,200 respondents
in five different states in India, covering 31 different rural and urban
localities.
The literature and important policy formulators such as the World Bank
assumes that decentralisation will bring many benefits, including an
enhanced responsiveness by governments to citizens’ demands and
wishes. The latter assumption is borne out by our data from India seen in
Table 1. We asked our respondents in five states – Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh,
Orissa, Kerala, and West Bengal – “How interested do you think the
central government is in the needs of people like yourself?” And we
posed the same question for the political level of state, district, and block
(the lowest administrative level) using a five-point scale from “very
interested” to “not at all interested”. Table 1 reports a “balance index”
which is calculated by adding the percentage saying “very interested” and
“quite interested” and then subtracting the percentage saying “not so
much interested” and “not at all interested”. The middle response “neither
interested nor uninterested” is hence not counted.
Table 1. Index of perceived government responsiveness;
Level of government and states in India
Level of government:
Central
State
District
Block
ALL
-1 -1 8 21
GUJ
7
7
34
16
UP
-31
-31
-38
-19
ORI
-19
-16
2
14
KER
1
26
24
40
WB
-1 10
31
51
In this paper I want to argue and show that it is not only the level of
government and regime type that matter for government responsiveness,
but also the political participation and social interaction among citizens.
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