Governing Locally: Institutions, Policies, and Implementation in Indian Cities

This Penn CASI seminar will feature Suraj Jacob, Political Economist, Azim Primji University, and Babu Jacob, Former Member, Indian Administrative Service, who will discuss their book Governing Locally: Institutions, Policies, and Implementation in Indian Cities.

About the Book:

India and other countries chose a decentralized mode of delivering public services through elected local governments for increasing public welfare. However, great expectations of effective services, increased accountability, and people’s participation were widely belied in practice. Based on field research in cities of Gujarat, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, the book is a detailed examination of how state and local governments function and why decentralization outcomes vary considerably. It locates the primary reason in governance practices that compromised autonomy and capacity of urban local governments. Governing Locally demonstrates that despite a constitutional mandate for decentralized governance, policy implementation got derailed in processes threading through laws, rules, and administrative actions. It shows how habitual practices create hidden institutional rigidities that thwart policy moves despite good intentions and democratic legitimacy. The book also discusses how to navigate policy to skirt hidden threats to successful implementation.

About the Authors:

Trained as a political economist in JNU, Cambridge and Stanford, Suraj Jacob has taught and researched in universities in the US and India. His interests are in the broad domains of policy, governance, democracy and social practices as well as the cultures and institutions that sustain them. He recently completed a stint as Chief Executive of Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur and is affiliated with the Azim Premji University (APU, Bangalore).

Babu Jacob was trained as a civil engineer and joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS, Kerala cadre) in 1968. He worked for over 35 years in different governance domains in the Kerala state government and the national government. A Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, he pursued better governance by addressing gaps between policy intent and policy practice. After his retirement as Chief Secretary of Kerala, he was affiliated with the Centre for Development Studies (CDS, Trivandrum) where he researched urban governance.

This event is co-sponsored by Penn IUR.