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Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition

Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India

Publication ,  Chapter
Krishna, A
January 1, 2007

Caste and patron–client links have been regarded most often as the building blocks of political organization in India, especially in its rural parts (Migdal 1988; Weiner 1989), and caste associations have been thought to be the pre-eminent mode of interest formation and interest articulation for ordinary villagers (Bailey 1957; Morris-Jones 1967; Panini 1997). Caste has changed over the last twenty-five years, however, and the links between caste and occupation and caste and wealth are no longer as close as they used to be (Mayer 1997; Sheth 1999). Many observers continue to stress caste and patron–client linkages as important factors explaining political mobilization in rural India (Karanth 1997; Kothari 1997; Manor 1997). The relation of caste to political organization is mediated, however, by the nature of state policies. Changes produced by state policies over the last twenty-five years have had the result of diminishing the utility for villagers of older caste- and patronage-based conduits. In sixty-nine villages where I studied these features, located in the northern Indian states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, different forms of political association have arisen and gained ground, and the salience of older patronage-based associations has waned considerably in comparison. Varying stimuli produced by the state at different times have resulted in reconfiguring caste and political association, the historical account shows (Bayly 1988; Dirks 2001). As the nature and the rules of the political game have changed once again over the past twenty-five years, caste and other forms of social aggregation have changed further in response.

Duke Scholars

DOI

ISBN

9780521865050

Publication Date

January 1, 2007

Start / End Page

141 / 158
 

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Krishna, A. (2007). Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India. In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition (pp. 141–158). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585869.006
Krishna, A. “Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India.” In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, 141–58, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585869.006.
Krishna A. Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India. In: Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. 2007. p. 141–58.
Krishna, A. “Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India.” Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, 2007, pp. 141–58. Scopus, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511585869.006.
Krishna A. Politics in the middle: Mediating relationships between the citizens and the state in rural North India. Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. 2007. p. 141–158.
Journal cover image

DOI

ISBN

9780521865050

Publication Date

January 1, 2007

Start / End Page

141 / 158