Archive for November, 2008
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Suitability of Amartya’s framework for institutions & development
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsIn order to theorise the roles of institutions in development, it is important to define development first. In this post, I argue that Amartya Sen’s “development as freedom” is the most suitable framework for theorising institutions & development. Amartya Sen has made a powerful argument for looking at development as a process of enhancing substantive freedoms (e.g. freedom from hunger, illiteracy, morbidity, etc.). This is best encapsulated in his book Development as freedom. Sen argues that freedoms have an intrinsic and instrumental importance and that human agency is the key to the pursuit of development. All three ideas have a... -
Institutional ethnography resources
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsProf. Marjorie DeVault hosts a website on institutional ethnography (see URL below). To quote her, “Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry that allows people to explore the social relations that structure their everyday lives. It was first developed as a “sociology for women,” by Dorothy E. Smith, and is now being used by researchers in the social sciences, education, human services, and policy research”. The website offers information on teaching resources and a brief look at people who use institutional ethnography in their work. URL: http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/mdevault/ -
My dissertation question
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsWhen it comes to provision of basic amenities India performs badly by any account. Roads, electricity, water, schools, primary health, nutrition programmes, other amenities most basic to people today are poorly provided in most parts of India. Facilities that exist too are badly maintained and are often dysfunctional. While this is true by and large some states have performed exceptionally well. The famed example is Kerala whose education and health programmes have been remarkable. Another equally remarkable performer has been Tamil Nadu. The state has huge budgetary commitments for the social sector and most of these schemes also tend to... -
Overview of institutional change in Tamil Nadu & Governance
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsAn overview of institutional changes in Tamil Nadu over two centuries that explains the state’s relatively good governance Myron Weiner argued that India’s failure in providing universal education was due to the hierarchical mindset of the elite politicians and bureaucrats who did not consider it essential for children from the lower castes to be educated. Similarly in the Western world, there is evidence that evidence that relatively equal societies created provisions for universal primary education earlier. In other words, there is a strong relationship between social relations in a society and the role the government plays therein. I argue that... -
Institutional economics, collective action & change
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsInstitutional economists have held that we do not know how institutions change. I speculate why collective action as an agent of institutional change has been ignored I used to be surprised that institutional economists argue that they do not know how institutional change happens. Collective action is such a prominent driving force, how could the economists have missed this? I speculate that this must be due to the structure-agent dichotomy in social sciences. Social theorists across disciplines have struggled between choosing structures or agency as their basis of analysis. Those who choose structures (production relations, prices, etc.) effectively assume that... -
Disciplinary training: More trained, less able
Posted on November 23, 2008 | No CommentsDuring fieldwork in India, I was amazed by the differences between common people that I interacted with, and the well trained students in the Western world. There were significant differences in the questions each asked and the observations they made. I was often left wondering if more training in the disciplinary world leads to less sophisticated understanding of this complex social world. Read on...
