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Comparative State Politics and Public Policy in India's Federal context (CSPPP): Lokniti-King’s College London Project

As part of Lokniti’s new research programme on comparative state politics in India, a Comparative State Politics and Public Policy in India's Federal context (CSPPP) project has been initiated in collaboration with the India Institute at King’s College, London. This three year international partnership (2011-13) is funded by the British Academy, UK’s national body for the humanities and social sciences. 

The two core aims of this collaborative enterprise are to promote comparative studies of Indian states via research collaboration and publications, and to develop revised curricula for use within Indian universities and the King’s India Institute. This project therefore takes forward ideas that have been discussed for a long time within the collective of doing sub-national comparisons in India and reorienting the subject of comparative politics in India towards comparative state politics. This initiative may take us beyond electoral politics and party competition and could give us a better handle to make sense of contemporary Indian politics.

The CSPPP brings together a group of scholars from both the UK and India to study the relationship between state politics and the formulation and implementation of public policy. The group includes Louise Tillin, Madura Rasaratnam, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya, Rajeshwari Deshpande, Rajesh Dev, Anupama Saxena, Yatindra Singh Sisodia, Divya Vaid and K K Kailash. 

It attempts to start a conversation between two distinct study areas, the study of public policy and the study of political parties and electoral democracy, which have often ignored each other even when they have addressed common issues. The CSPPP will primarily focus on social policies, especially poverty reduction and welfare programmes.

Bengaluru CSPPP workshop June 13-15, 2012

The Comparative State Politics and Public Policy in India's Federal context (CSPPP) group met at a three day workshop organised at the Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Education (CERSSE), Jain University, Bengaluru from June 13-15. The project members who attended included Louise Tillin, Madura Rasaratnam, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya, Rajeshwari Deshpande, Anupama Saxena, Yatindra Singh Sisodia, Divya Vaid and K K Kailash.

Prof James Manor, Emeka Anyaoku Professor of Commonwealth Studies at The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, Prof Sandeep Shastri, Pro-vice chancellor, Jain University, Bengaluru, Dr Jos Mooij, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Mr. Meenakshi Sundaram, a former civil servant and currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at ISEC Bangalore were the main expert resource persons.

This workshop gave the group an opportunity to discuss, map and refine not only the broad contours of the collective project but also the specific projects that would be undertaken. The three main themes that received attention at the workshop included a) politics-policy relationship, b) public policy analysis and c) methodological issues. During the first-two days, the participants basically discussed a set of selected readings which had been previously circulated. The expert resource persons also made special presentations on selected issues. On the last day of the workshop, the collaborative research plans of the different projects were presented, discussed and refined.