Summary
Contents
Subject index
Both India and China have experienced economic changes that have generated new challenges for local institutions. This volume closely studies the resultant grass-roots political experiences in these countries from an interdisciplinary perspective. It examines the process of democratization and highlights the growing demands for participation and the complex power structures interjecting them.
The contributors to this volume discuss issues relating to institutional structures and the dynamics of local governance in a changing socio-economic environment. In addition to the political economy of rural areas, they also focus on the role of gender, ethnicity, and religion in local political processes.
Key Features
Outlines how institutional innovation has evolved in both countries; Highlights the impact of the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution (in India) and the Organic Law (in China) in facilitating political participation; Investigates how far the new democratic processes have reduced ethnic subordination, caste hierarchy, and gender injustice at the village level
Comprising individual case studies as well as comparative perspectives, this pioneering volume raises new issues of institution-building and socio-economic change vis-à-vis the right to participate. It will be of particular interest to political scientists, sociologists, and social activists.
Democracy, Good Governance and Economic Development in Rural China
Democracy, Good Governance and Economic Development in Rural China
Introduction
Within a decade of the decollectivisation of rural China (1978–83) and the enormous economic boom that decollectivisation generated, rural China began to fall on hard times.1 Particularly after the urban reforms of 1984 and rapid urban economic growth in the mid- to late-1980s, rural China's economic conditions deteriorated. The price scissors between urban and rural goods, which had narrowed in 1978–83, expanded significantly. As many as 20 per cent of rural villages lacked any real political authority. In the 1990s, local taxes and fees, imposed by cash-strapped rural cadres, created political hostility and social conflict that threatens the Communist Party's grip on power in the countryside.2 ...
- Loading...
