Policymaking in India evokes an image of rational decision-making and technical optimality. However, the arena of policymaking is characterized by conflict and contestation resolved through processes of negotiations and compromises. A significant amount of research in India focuses on policy goals and consequences, and less on policy processes. Breaking away from that approach, Public Policy and Politics in India directly addresses policy processes and discusses the role of institutions in policymaking in India. The wide-ranging essays cover issues such as environment, education, Parliament, liberalization, and governance. They highlight failures of implementation resulting from deep-rooted flaws in overall policy design. The volume aims not only to provoke a debate but also to encourage more systematic studies in the area. 'This significant volume provides an excellent understanding of policy studies in India since independence' - Sudha Pai, Professor, Center for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India 'Professor Mathur, a leading observer of Indian politics and policy, explores the political and administrative intricacies of the governmental system, with particular emphasis on institutional practices.' - Frank Fischer, Professor of Politics and Global Affairs, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA 'Through his wonderfully engaging essays, Kuldeep Mathur provides us with a rich understanding of the messiness within which Indias public policies are made and unmade.' - Bishnu N. Mohapatra, Professor, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India

This book is an important contribution to critical literature on public administration in India. It examines efforts at administrative reforms and the shifts that created new institutions and practices that are being planted on the existing foundations inherited from colonial rule. It provides an account of the unsuccessful attempts at administrative reform during the plan period in spite of advice of numerous committees and commissions and reports of international experts. It identifies the role of the political leadership in eroding its professed values of neutrality and professionalism and turning it into an instrument of achieving its own political goals. The adoption of neo-liberal policies for development are examined in how they changed the perspective on reform, and new institutions within this paradigm began to be installed without changing the existing ones. The book argues that hybrid architecture for delivering public goods and services has been the most significant transformation to be institutionalized in the current era. This is marked by the blurred boundaries between public values of access and equity and the interests of private profit, as well as the erosion of democratic accountability. With the diminishing ability of serving the public interest, these trends open up critical questions of whose interests does the State serve, and whether it still makes sense to call it 'public administration'.

The twentieth century was characterised by major advances in science and technology, and the pursuit of ambitious developmental goals strengthened the technocratic orientation of public administration. This study addresses technocratic factors in policy formulation and implementation by examining Indian and Dutch policies in primary education and primary health for establishing and sustaining human capital. While comparisons between India and the Netherlands may appear to be a mismatch due to substantial differences in levels of socio-economic development, similarities are nevertheless manifest. Both being deeply democratic and parliamentary, their systems of government are not far apart despite one being a decentralised unitary state and the other a quasi-federal state. Likewise, technocratisation in decision-making in both countries has been stimulated by changes in the past decade: the Netherlands is adjusting to membership in the European Union while India has adopted liberalised economic policies. This book provides opportunities for learning from experience as well as providing generalisations about patterns of change. Published in association with Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development.