Claiming the State Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India

• Main Author: Kruks-Wisner, Gabrielle 1977- (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2018
• Subjects: Political participations > India; Poor > Political activity > India; Citizenship > Social aspects > India; Marginality, Social > Political aspects > India; Public welfare > India; Social service > India
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Physical Description: xxii, 318 pages illustrations 24 cm
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 9781107199750; 9781316649008

Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social security. This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world's largest democracy make claims on the state, asking whether, how, and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India, Kruks-Wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action, she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, or village - builds citizens' political knowledge, expectations, and linkages to the state, and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoires of claim-making.