Superimposition: How Indian city bureaucracies are responding to climate change

Abstract

City governments are facing complex challenges due to climate change, but those in the global South often have limited capacities and governance arrangements to develop and execute a response. Cities must also manage other existing priorities such as housing, water and waste management, which have established bureaucratic practices and incentives. How are such cities with limited climate governance capacity and with existing non-climate priorities developing a climate response? From interviews and participant observation in two Indian cities that are pioneering climate action, we find that actors are ‘superimposing’ climate objectives onto existing bureaucratic practices. Building on analysis of ongoing projects in the two cities, we theorize superimposition as an approach taken by bureaucracies that have the intention of responding to climate change but have limited control over their planning practices and mandates, high levels of institutional inertia to change existing practices, and multiple other objectives related to development that dominate agendas. As superimposition does not involve the modification of existing bureaucratic practices or incentives, the types of climate actions which emerge from this approach reflect the features, scope and limitations of existing political arrangements. We highlight five such features of how Indian city bureaucracies respond to climate change: (1) the primacy of central and state ‘schemes’, (2) the prioritization of ‘development’ as an objective, and the imperative to implement (3) ‘quick win’, (4) ‘visible’ and (5) ‘bankable’ projects. Superimposition has led to creative and politically tenable climate projects that meet both climate objectives and those of existing schemes on housing, water and waste. But these projects are also limited by existing governance arrangements with tradeoffs for long-term planning, urban justice and public ownership of infrastructure.

A tug of war between centralization and decentralization: the co-evolution of urban governance and water risks in Guwahati, India

“…Further, while decentralization is considered a good urban governance practice (Bassi and Kumar 2012), within Guwahati the unfolding externalities of power dynamics, and existing path dependencies, complicate decentralization efforts to address urban water risks. What this means for many growing cities such as Guwahati is that the policies are increasingly decided by national decision-makers based on aspirations and learning from larger cities with a strong global North bias (Bhardwaj and Khosla 2020, Hemani et al 2017, Verrest and Pfeffer 2019. Many of the current regime's practices, such as urban water boards and riverfront developments, centralized water supply systems are adopted based on external experiences rather than local learning (Mohan 1983, Kumar andGeneletti 2015).…”

“…Intermediate cities often have limited resources and rely on state and national government funding. This reliance means an easier acceptance of changes to the governance structures and the adoption of new mandates dictated by the national government or donors (Bhardwaj and Khosla 2020). However, this reliance does not prevent local actors from navigating away from imposed mandates.…”

Grassroots involvement on Global South policy narratives and deliberative action on climate change loss and damage

“…Hearing narratives from all corners: lensing through the Southeast Asia loss and damage workshop in Bohol, Philippines Previous forums, debates, and discourses over climate change, if not highly dominated by technical experts and concentrated by those with high power, lacks the active participation of those people from the primary sectors and from the grassroots of society who are directly PAP 26,2 affected (Few et al, 2007;Pettenger, 2016). Climate change financing initiatives mainly focus on building response and recovery facilities, mitigation, and adaptation measures which streamline the role of governments and bureaucracies towards action (Bhardwaj and Khosla, 2021;Bracking and Leffel, 2021;Javeline, 2014). As stated, the call for international bodies to channel some attention to loss and damage finance goes beyond the normative response to climate change crises.…”

Climate Governance and Federalism in India

“…11 Signals from the central government play a role in mobilizing state bureaucrats. Bhardwaj and Khosla (2021) show that performance in delivering high-profile climate-related CSSs come with perks in the form of promotions, monetary rewards, and prestige. The structure of Indian state bureaucracies, led by Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers eager to make the leap to Delhi, encourages 'allegiance to the bureaucratic hierarchy at the Centre' and pushes the IAS cream to prioritize central schemes in their interaction with subordinate state bureaucrats (Aiyar and Kapur 2019, 210).…”