Based on fifteen years of intensive anthropological and sociological fieldwork, this book presents provocative insights in the daily life of men and women in various villages of India. The topics dealt with are varied as also important and policy relevant. The author deals with the propensity of the village panchayats and their actual working in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the impact of land reforms on development, the causes of the high human development index in Kerala, communalism at the village level, the views of poor villagers on the post-modernist views on development, child labour and family views on children as capital, and with the changing world view in relation to religion, caste and the position of women. The author deals with these issues drawing on a multifaceted background, taking care at the same time that the views of the villagers, and their daily concerns come through as the principal empirical evidence.

Several scholars have written about how authoritarian or democratic political systems affect industrialization in the developing countries. There is no literature, however, on whether democracy makes a difference to the power and well-being of the countryside. Using India as a case where the longest-surviving democracy of the developing world exists, this book investigates how the countryside uses the political system to advance its interests. It is first argued that India's countryside has become quite powerful in the political system, exerting remarkable pressure on economic policy. The countryside is typically weak in the early stages of development, becoming powerful when the size of the rural sector defies this historical trend. But an important constraint on rural power stems from the inability of economic interests to overpower the abiding, ascriptive identities, and until an economic construction of politics completely overpowers identities and non-economic interests, farmers' power, though greater than ever before, will remain self-limited.

This book addresses the paradox of uneven electricity in one of the fastest growing and now petro rich economies, Ghana, by addressing the question of why one of the most hydro rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa produces irregular access for all but ‘swing’ voter regions of the country. The book questions why targeted rural electricity initiatives over the course of the last two decades have yielded uneven benefits for what is a substantial portion of the country’s population. Using Ghana as an emblematic case-study that speaks to broader regional concerns, including those of Nigeria and South Africa, this book contextualizes the variegated nature of how power sector reforms could not be undertaken without significant political costs. Indeed, the book situates an unfolding political landscape that prompted the successful but partial implementation of power sector reforms in part prompted by the Washington consensus and undergirded by a shrinking role for the state in the wider economy.

Rural development is inherently viewed as a positive thing; it is seen as something that brings together groups of individuals with automatic positive implications and outcomes. Policy rhetoric frequently uses popular terms such as involvement, participation and power sharing to describe rural development activities. However, the reality of experience on the ground does not necessarily concur with these ideals. It is not always clear who ultimately benefits from rural development: the State, the community or rural development practitioners. This book critically analyses key concepts associated with rural development policy and practice, and using the concepts of power and micro-politics to analyze rhetoric and reality, reveals the intricacies of rural development. Challenging popular ideals associated with rural development, this book presents the notion of rural development less as a spontaneous, all-inclusive affair and more as a limited, controlled and exclusive process. Ultimately it contends that within structures of rural governance, a regeneration power elite predominates development and regeneration activities.

How can the seeds of accountability ever grow in authoritarian environments? This book explores the how civil society "thickens" by comparing two decades of rural citizens' struggles to hold the Mexican state accountable, exploring both change and continuity before, during and after national electoral turning points.

Attributes Canadian withdrawal from the Thaba-Tseka rural development project largely to problems accompanying the expansion of state power ("etatization"). Includes an introductory literature survey on development planning and evaluation in general.