How can clientelistic politics be transformed into programmatic politics in a subnational state with a well-recorded history of patronage politics? We explore institutional pathways away from clientelism by systematically explicating clientelistic propensities with programmatic citizen-oriented ones in undivided Andhra Pradesh. This paper engages with a paradigm shift in policy from clientelistic to programmatic service delivery in rural development by exploring three major rural welfare programmes in undivided Andhra Pradesh: need-based redistribution, evolution of self-help groups and implementation of the right to work in India through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme. We argue that the capacity of the state to deliver owes a great deal to bureaucratic puzzling and political powering over developmental ideas. We combine powering and puzzling within the state to argue the case for how these ideas tip after evolving in a path-dependent way.

This article argues that the Indian state can develop the capacity to deliver economic rights in a citizen-friendly way, despite serious challenges posed by patronage politics and clientelism. Clientelistic politics reveals why the Indian state fails to deliver the basic rights such as the right to work, health and education. We argue that the ability of the state to deliver owes a lot to bureaucratic puzzling and political powering over developmental ideas in a path-dependent way. We combine powering and puzzling within the state to argue the case for how these ideas tip after they have gained a fair amount of traction within the state. We test the powering and puzzling leading to a tipping point model on the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in undivided Andhra Pradesh (AP). How and why did undivided AP develop the capacity to make reach employment to the rural poor, when many other states failed to implement the right to work in India?

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract