Accountability of Local and State Governments in India: An Overview of Recent Research

The paper discusses the notion of accountability, followed by an introduction to the Downsian theory of electoral competition. This serves as a point for classifying different sources of accountability failures in actual political systems. Subsequent sections deal with each of these in turn: limited voter participation and awareness; ideology, honesty and competence of political parties and electoral candidates; capture by elites; clientelism and vote-buying. Each section starts by explaining the relevant departure from the Downsian framework, and then reviews available empirical evidence in the Indian context for each of these possible distortions’,besides effects of related policy interventions. The final section summarizes the lessons learnt, and the fresh questions that they raise.