the file and other procedures, essential
components of this impersonal rule-bound system. The
aim is to see how the State responds to this claim and
to examine conventional and popular wisdom that the
State and its bureaucracy do not operate in the manner
expected of the normative frameworks of a modern liberal
democratic state.
We selected cases that allowed us different points of
entry into the stories of citizens interacting with
the State via its bureaucracy including one of how a
recent bureaucrat herself understands her location and
actions. The cases allow us to be sensitive in selecting
distinctive nuances set in motion by state processes.
Through these case studies, it also became obvious that
the State is not similarly disposed to all citizens
and hence different categories of citizens invite different
processes to be set into motion.
The field chosen for this study was
from the West Coast of the State of Goa in India. The
files followed vary from one revolving around land and
development of it, to the application for social security
pension from the State. The categories of citizen experiences
covered range from the upper middle class to the lower
socio-economic segments.
The exercise resulted in material that
allows for a review of the culturalist critique of the
State in the developing world. There are two positions
within this critique, one that holds that developing
societies lack the necessary normative social consensus
requirements to uphold the rule of law, hence the chronic
and acute breakdown of ‘due process’. At
the other extreme, the failure of procedure is celebrated
to point out that what is in fact happening is a critique
of the modern and developmental State by the society
that is being sought to be developed i.e. a society
in resistance to developmentalism.
We try through this paper to move beyond
the polarities suggested by the cultural critique of
the State in developing countries and show that perhaps
neither is true, and that there is something else at
work here. Both ends of the culturalist critique operate
on the presumption that the modern State is an insertion,
an unhappy transplant into the developing world, and
like a transplanted organ, is being rejected by the
body it is introduced into. At either end of the spectrum,
there is a lack of recognition that the State is not
a super-regulatory organ but rather is embedded in society
and its character and working is defined by social and
political democratic process, and that norms of democracy
are in fact being integrated within the body politic,
in a highly cultural specific manner.
The acts of acceptance of bribes or
the violation of the norms of impersonal bureaucracy
in access to State benefits, or the crafting of rules
which plant an insider within the State mechanism, while
contrary to the norms of democracy, are seen as requiring
individuals and groups to establish networks of belonging
that lead to (a) the State reaching out to larger numbers
of persons, (b) the requirement of electoral politics
requiring the political party to distribute as widely
as possible the benefits of the State (c) establishing
of linkages (social capital) between the politician,
bureaucrats and those sections of society that have
voice and (d) even while groups that cannot generate
adequate voice stand deprived, they too stand to learn
the processes of political networking and alliances.
Issues raised:
| • |
The claim of
a citizen in a system that is designed to act
impersonally and according to the rules of procedure
is actually processed on the basis of personal
and communitarian considerations |
| • |
The State acts differently
towards different categories of citizens. |
| • |
Importance of networking
with officials at various levels of the State
so that there are no roadblocks as the citizen’s
claims moves vertically and horizontally from
one level to the next |
| • |
The local self government
authorities can acquire social and political legitimacy
by securing citizens access to state services |
| • |
Networking as a mechanism
to reinforce local ties with locals getting preferential
access to the system and ‘outsiders’
who have to go through elaborate financial processes
to gain access to the same services and benefits |
| • |
Perception at the local
level that the intricate maze of rules are a ploy
to extract monetary inducements |
| • |
Politicians and bureaucrats
accumulate economic gains and use these finances
to acquire social and political legitimacy by
furthering the claims of citizens |
| • |
The accumulation of economic
gains is at the cost of the citizen which in turn,
impairs social and political legitimacy |
| • |
Tendency to create a formal
role for the politician within bureaucratic procedures |
| • |
Some institutional mechanisms
have been designed wherein the citizen initiates
his claim through an intermediary who is politically
appointed and who extracts financial gain for
himself and for the politicians and bureaucrats
who are a part of the process without the direct
involvement of the citizen |
| • |
Political interference, bureaucratic
lethargy and time-consuming judicial procedures
are meant to reinforce existing social hierarchies. |
| • |
The embeddedness of social
networks and politicians into bureaucratic procedure
guarantees a widening access of the State to the
citizenry and hence enhances democracy |
| • |
Democracy is a living ‘process’
as opposed to a set of rigid procedural principles |
|
|
|
