Coalition Governments and Good Governance

As a political phenomenon, coalition and coalition governments have become a part of Indian public life, but are coalitions capable of steering the ship of administration towards and the welfare, developmental and regulatory shores of Good Governance? The contributors to this volume, who are renowned scholars of Public Administration and Political Science, grapple with the analytical assessment of the strength and weaknesses of coalition governments in India vis-à-vis the apparatus and achievements of administrative efficiency and efficacy as post-1991 India continues its search for governmental stability in the wake of fragmentation of the Indian party system. The decline of the one party dominant party system has made coalitions inevitable making all students of public Administration ask: Is administration an invariant function of government i.e. is Public administration indifferent to the political form of the government? Almost simultaneously with the seemingly irreversible advent of coalition governments in India, the world witnessed the floatation of the concept of "Good Governance" by the World Bank and other international and multi-lateral organizations. Several scholars attempt to delineate the contours of this concept taking due not of the legacies of India’s long history of praja-oriented governance while others spell out its postulates in the context of coalition politics. Their contributions also highlight the tri-lateral conjunction of Coalitions Government, Good Governance and federalism in Changing India with one essay documenting the emergence of the Group of Ministers as an innovative device to tackle the federal implications of bi-nodality in Indian party system. The emergent economic giant-hood of India poses several complex questions to all social sciences in general and Political Science and Public Administration in particular. This volume addresses many important concerns in this regard and hopefully would prove to be useful to analysts as well as activists in the broad domains of public affairs.