Participation and Power: Poor People's Engagement with India's Employment Assurance Scheme

Abstract

Participation' has become an essential part of good developmental practice for Southern governments, NGOs and international agencies alike. In this article we reflect critically on this shift by investigating how a 'participatory' development programme -India's Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) -intersects with poor people's existing social networks. By placing the formalized process of participation in the EAS within the context of these varied and uneven village-level relationships, we raise a number of important issues for participatory development practice. We note the importance of local power brokers and the heterogeneity of 'grassroots' (dis)empowerment, and question ideas of power reversals used within the participatory development literature.

Managing political space: authority, marginalised people’s agency and governance in West Bengal

“…The party could mediate this range of activities in part by continually performing its presence through the regular conduct of local party meetings at various levels ranging from the neighbourhood to the entire panchayat. These meetings were an important part of the cPI(M)'s information feedback mechanism noted by Dasgupta (2009; see also Williams et al, 2003), and were used to persuade households of the party's value to them: giving advice to the poor, urging them to continue their trust in the party and highlighting their lack of alternative sources of support. At election time, this political pedagogy could shift from persuasion to coercion, with both senior party leaders and their subordinates adopting overtly forceful language.…”

Exploring 'Unseen' Social Capital in Community Participation : Everyday Lives of Poor Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong

“…For example, they may perpetuate gender and ethnic exclusions, and reinforce unequal access and distribution of social capital. Studies show that the reliance on local elites may reproduce power inequalities as they may articulate their own interests in the name of the needs of the poor (Williams et al 2003). The school of 'crafting institutions' is in favour of the idea that institutions can be deliberately designed and purposefully created.…”

“…Another shortcoming is that communities are assumed to be waiting to be mobilised via outsiders. Williams et al (2003) argue that this suggests an inaccurate impression and ignores 'the breadth of individual and collective action already present within any community' (p. 171).…”

“…They suggest that traditions and local customs are not politically neutral which can become the local elites' instruments in justifying their legitimacy (Williams et al 2003). Without a deeper understanding of local politics and the internal power structures within local organisations, interventions only reinforce the existing inequalities.…”

“…This is the reason why clan association staff members, whom I mentioned in the previous section, did not pursue the reporting of the case involving profiteering to higher authorities. Williams et al (2003) has argued that the real problem that the poor encounter is not one of consciousness, but of 'finding ways of Institutions are highly interrelated; change within one institution, without change in the others has little impact on the overall structure of authority. The poor are also trapped in this dilemma.…”