Decentralised governance and people participation in local government
- 2011
- p.234-241.
- Apr-Jun
The period since the 1980s has seen a global trend toward political democratisation and pluralism, economic liberalisation, and transitions to a market-oriented economy, although varied from country to country and region to region. In this light, increasing attention has come to be paid to the importance of people's broader participation in local development. India's decentralisation experiments since Independence have in various ways tried to address the issues of both development and people participation. This article undertakes a critical analysis of people participation for good governance at grassroots level. It focuses on decentralisation as a way of enhancing the effectiveness of people participation in local development. In addition, the changing face of local development in the overall national development agenda and the consistent evolution of local development policy are traced and evaluated. The article concludes that effective local people participation must specifically relate to effective devolution of power to the localities. - Reproduced.