Claiming the State: Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India
Cambridge University Press, 8/16/2018
EAN 9781316649008, ISBN10: 1316649008
Paperback, 336 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social security. This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world's largest democracy make claims on the state, asking whether, how, and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India, Kruks-Wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action, she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, or village - builds citizens' political knowledge, expectations, and linkages to the state, and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoires of claim-making.
Part I. Introduction and Theory
1. Introduction
citizenship and social welfare
2. A theory of active citizenship
Part II. Citizenship Practice In Rajasthan
3. The institutional terrain of the state
4. Seeking the state
claim-making patterns and puzzles
5. Encountering the state
citizens' social and spatial exposure
6. Claiming the state
exposure as a catalyst for citizen action
Part III. Consequences and Extensions
7. The consequences of claim-making
8. Conclusion
active citizenship in Rajasthan and beyond
Appendices
References
Index.