Strategies for Synergy in a High Modernist Project: Two Community Responses to India’s NREGA Rural Work Program

Veeraraghavan, Rajesh

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.027

Cited by 19 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Though the government did continue to push the liberalization of the economy, business interests became increasingly frustrated with the government's determination to expand social programmes. NREGA in particular invited widespread attacks as a wasteful, anti-market policy, especially from landed elites who resented the government's interference in local labour markets they had long dominated (Veeraraghavan 2017). But the opposition of these dominant economic interests alone was hardly enough to build an electorally viable coalition and specifically to expand support from a growing middle class.…”

Section: Explaining the Reactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

Widmalm¹

2021

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The essays of this handbook dissect the trends towards creeping authoritarianism in South Asia. Even India, long a poster boy of "third world" democracy, appears to be catching up with its neighbours in a "non-democratic regime convergence". However, instead of merely confirming Huntington's deterministic pessimism regarding non-western democracy, or jumping on to wide-eyed bushy-tailed advocacy, authors of this important volume follow a third trajectory, based on fine-grained empirical analysis and empathy with their subject, within a comparative framework. This handbook should become an indispensable tool for the people of South Asia, as well as for outsiders looking in.'

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Section: Explaining the Reactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

Widmalm¹

2021

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“…The program has benefited over 100 million workers making it possibly the largest anti-poverty program in history. A large body of research has clearly demonstrated not only that the program has pushed up rural wages (Jenkins and Manor, 2017), but that in some parts of India it has clearly disrupted traditional relations of labor domination (Veeraraghavan, 2017). Despite corruption scandals and a lack of party discipline, the Congress managed to get re-elected in 2008 in part on the popularity of NREGA (Jenkins and Manor, 2017).…”

Section: From Restricted Democracies To Democratic Deepeningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The age of reaction: Retrenchment populism in India and Brazil

Heller

2020

International Sociology

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Two of the largest democracies in the global south – India and Brazil – have witnessed a dramatic turn to right-wing populism. Careful historical comparison reveals that the form of reaction is markedly different from other recent cases of democratic backsliding. In both cases, reaction has been driven by elites in response to a previous expansion of democratic rights and social inclusion. This form of retrenchment populism is rooted in very similar class realignments that are configured both by economic and socio-cultural interests. Globalization has played a role, but not through the conventionally identified pathways of neoliberalism or modernization. Instead, reaction has been driven by an expanded middle class’s efforts to hoard opportunity and public resources and preserve traditional status privileges.

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“…There were other important examples of the movement for social protection as well. 4 The legacy of India’s somewhat moribund Nehruvian socialism still showed life, generating significant new programs, such as NREGA, which is considered ‘perhaps the largest public-employment program ever’ (Veeraraghavan, 2017: 205). And, of course, Brazil under the Workers’ Party was a poster child for the ability of social democratic politics to mitigate the effects of neoliberalism.…”

Section: A Polanyian Framementioning

confidence: 99%

Polanyi meets Bolsonaro: Reactionary politics and the double movement in twenty-first-century Brazil

Evans

2020

International Sociology

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Twenty-first-century Brazil’s political evolution is a window on the dynamics of contemporary political transitions. The inability of Brazil’s Workers’ Party to sustain its social democratic project and the subsequent rise of the reactionary regime of Jair Bolsonaro are, in turn, part of a global pattern of political change. Karl Polanyi’s vision of the ‘double movement,’ in which the dominance of the market vies with the countervailing movement for social protection, offers an analytical springboard for reflecting on these political transitions. Trying to understand the movement for social protection leads to examining ebbs and flows in the momentum of mobilization. Trying to understand how market dominance leads to reaction brings us back to Polanyi’s advocacy of ‘crass materialism’ as a lens for looking at reaction, and from there to consideration of how the structural power of capital undercuts efforts at social protection and opens the door to reaction.

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Strategies for Synergy in a High Modernist Project: Two Community Responses to India’s NREGA Rural Work Program

Cited by 19 publications

References 20 publications

Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia

The age of reaction: Retrenchment populism in India and Brazil

Polanyi meets Bolsonaro: Reactionary politics and the double movement in twenty-first-century Brazil

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