Grass-roots Democracy in India and China: The Right to Participate

by George Mathew, Manoranjan Mohanty, Richard Baum, Rong Ma

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Both India and China have experienced economic changes and growing social consciousness which have generated new challenges for local institutions. This volume closely studies the resultant grass-roots political experiences in these countries from an interdisciplinary perspective. It examines the process of democratization and highlights the growing demands for participation and the complex power structures interjecting them. The contributors to this volume discuss relating to institutional structures and the dynamic of local governance in a change social-economic environment that panchayati raj in India and village committee system in China represent. In addition to the political economy of rural areas, they also focus on the role of gender, caste, class, ethnicity and religion in local political process. In doing so, the volume: outlines how institutional innovation has evolved in both countries; highlights the impact of the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution (in India) and the Organic Law (in China) in facilitating political participation; and investigates how far the new democratic processes have reduced ethnic subordination, caste hierarchy and gender injustice at the village level. Comprising individual case studies as well as comparative perspective, this pioneering volume on local democracy raises new issues of institution-building and socio-economic change vis-Ã -vis the right to participate. It will be of particular interest to political scientists, sociologists and social activists.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Manoranjan Mohanty

Manoranjan Mohanty is Co-Chairperson, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. He is also a visiting professor at the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi. Formerly Professor of Political Science and Director, Developing Countries Research Centre, University of Delhi, his research interests are Chinese politics and comparative development studies. He has also been active in the peace and democratic rights movement. His most recent publications are Class, Caste, Gender (edited, 204), Contemporary Indian Political Theory (2000) and Peopleâ€™s Rights (Co-edited with Partha Nath Mukherji, 1998).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Baum

Richard Baum is Professor of Political Science, University of Californi, at Los Angeles. He was also the director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies (1999-2005). A student of Chinese politics and foreign policy, he has written and edited eight books, including Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (1996) and Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China: The Road to Tiananmen (1990).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rong Ma

Rong Ma is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Director, Institute of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Beijing. He is a scholar of ethnic relations, migration, urbanization, education and rural development. Besides having published a number of articles in various journals, he has authored Introduction to Sociology of Ethnicity (2005) in Chinese, Population and Society in Tibet (1996) and co-edited On Development of Chinaâ€™s Frontier Regions (1993).