Skip to main content

The Retreat to Method: the Aftermath of Elite Concession to Civil Society in India and Mexico

Studies in Comparative International Development volume 54, pages 19–39 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

The literature on democratic accountability assumes that alternative institutions can make state practices more transparent and thus enhance accountability. In this paper, we problematize the celebration of alternative institutions by comparing the cases of Mexico and India. Why, we ask, given the popular support for a caste census and a rights-based approach to poverty alleviation in India and Mexico, respectively, did these initiatives lose steam soon after political elites conceded to civil society demands? In answer, we argue that alternative institutions may become conduits to undercut accountability under the guise of expertise through a mechanism that we call the “retreat to method,” in which political elites channel substantive public debate into abstruse disputes over methodology. As the task of measuring poverty and caste retreats into backrooms, vertical accountability between the state and civil society in our two cases has weakened. Horizontal accountability mechanisms—in which one arm of the state (e.g., the bureaucracy) provides checks and balances on another (e.g., the legislature)—may be exploited to undercut vertical accountability in cases where expertise is valued over democratic deliberation.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

  1. Interview, September 12, 2012.

  2. We are grateful to an anonymous SCID reviewer for suggesting this phrase.

  3. The scholarship on technocratic politics highlights the competing logics of democracy and expert-based decision-making and traces the tendency of experts to shift the debate to one where technocrats rule (Mitchell 2002; Centeno 1994; Jasanoff 2003). While democracy seeks to broaden the arena for public debate and participation, technocratic expertise values the voice and participation of those with the specialized skills and knowledge to achieve outcomes that will ostensibly benefit the public (Collins and Evans 2008; Brown 2009).

  4. Interview, June 22, 2015.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Interview, June 20, 2015.

  7. Interview, July 24, 2013.

  8. Interview, March 3, 2013.

  9. Interview, May 24, 2013; interview, September 20, 2012.

  10. Interview, March 3, 2013.

  11. Interview, February 29, 2013.

  12. Interview, August 29, 2012.

  13. The measures were named provisionally by the TCPM—L1, L2, and L3. The Fox administration named these measures of “food”, “capabilities”, and “assets.”

  14. Interview, August 29, 2012.

  15. The Social Development Law can be accessed here: http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/ref/lgds/LGDS_orig_20ene04.pdf

References

  • Abers RN, Keck ME. Muddy waters: the political construction of deliberative river basin governance in Brazil. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2006;30:601–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ackerman J. Co-governance for accountability: beyond “exit” and “voice”. World Dev. 2004;32:447–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aguilar Camín H, Meyer L. In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1993.

  • Baiocchi G, Ganuza E. Popular democracy: the paradox of participation. Stanford: Stanford University Press; 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrientos A. Latin America: towards a liberal-informal welfare regime. In: Gough I, Wood G, editors. Insecurity and welfare regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayly S. Caste, society and politics in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown M. Science in democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2009.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Camic C, Gross N, Lamont M. Social knowledge in the making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2011.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Centeno MA. Democracy within reason: technocratic revolution in Mexico. University Park: Penn State Press; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cernea MM. The ‘production’ of a social methodology. In: Eddy E, Partridge W, editors. Applied anthropology in America. New York: Columbia University Press; 1987. p. 237–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chatterjee P. Nationalist thought and the colonial world. London: Zed Books for the United Nations University. 1986.

  • Chhibber M. GoM unanimous yes to caste in census. New Delhi: The Indian Express; August 12, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins H, Evans R. Rethinking expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • CONEVAL, 2014. ¿Cómo se logró construir la medición de pobreza del CONEVAL? http://www.coneval.org.mx/Medicion/MP/Documents/Como_logro_construir_la_medicion_de_Coneval%20(1).pdf

  • Constituent Assembly of India. Constituent assembly debates. Volume XI. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat; 1966.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cornelius WA, Craig AL, Fox J. Transforming state-society relations in Mexico: the national solidarity strategy. San Diego: Center for US-Mexican Studies; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Correspondent. Census 2011 to include caste. Hindustan Times. May 8, 2010.

  • Cortés Cáceres F. Breve historia de una historia breve: el Comité Técnico para la Medición de la Pobreza. In: Székeley M, editor. Numeros que mueven el mundo. México: Miguel Angel Porrúa;2005.

  • Davis D, Brachet-Márquez V. Rethinking democracy: Mexico in historical perspective. Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History. 1997;39:86–119.

    Google Scholar 

  • de la Jara FH. De Progresa a oportunidades: efectos y límites de la corriente cívica en el gobierno de Vicente Fox. Sociología. 2009;24:70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deshpande S. Caste and castelessness. Econ Polit Wkly. 2013;48:32–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dhar A. Caste in census. Chennai: The Hindu; August 12, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dirks N. Castes of mind. Princeton University Press: Princeton; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Espeland WN. Bureaucratizing democracy, democratizing bureaucracy. Law and Social Inquiry. 2000;25:1077–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans P. Development as institutional change. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2004;38:30–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans P, Stallings B. Development studies: enduring debates and possible trajectories. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2016;51:1–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Express News Service. Census to include caste, government says will work out modalities. New Delhi: The Indian Express; May 8, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fizbien A, Schady N. Conditional cash transfers: reducing present and future poverty. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankel F, Rao MSA. eds. Dominance and State Power in Modern India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989.

  • Fourcade M. The political valuation of life. Regulation and Governance. 2009;3:291–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox J. The difficult transition from clientelism to citizenship: lessons from Mexico. World Politics. 1994;46:151–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox J. Accountability politics: power and voice in rural Mexico. Oxford: University of Oxford Press; 2007.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Galanter M. Competing equalities. New Delhi: Oxford University Press; 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of India. Lok Sabha Debates, 15th Series, Vol. IX, 4th Session, Delhi: Government of India. 2010.

  • Graizbord D. 2017. Democratic accountability and its discontents: social policy evaluation expertise in Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University.

  • Grimes M. The contingencies of societal accountability. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2013;48:380–402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grindle M. Official interpretations of rural under-development: Mexico in the 1970s. San Diego: Center For Mexican Studies; 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta S. GoM approval for caste-based census. Chennai: The Hindu; August 11, 2010a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta S. Centre clears caste in census 2010. Chennai: The Hindu; September 9, 2010b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guru G. The Indian nation in its egalitarian conception. In: Rawat R, Satyanarayana S, editors. Dalit studies. Durham: Duke University Press; 2016. p. 31–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haggard S, Kaufman RR. The political economy of democratic transitions. Princeton University Press: Princeton; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton N. The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1982.

  • Heller P. Degrees of democracy: some comparative lessons from India. World Politics. 2000;52:484–519.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holston J. Insurgent citizenship: disjunctions of democracy and modernity in Brazil. Princeton University Press: Princeton; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houtzager PP, Acharya AK. Associations, active citizenship and the quality of democracy in Brazil and Mexico. Theory and Society. 2010;40:1–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houtzager PP, Gurza LA. Civil society’s claims to political representation in Brazil. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2010;45:1–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaffrelot C. India’s silent revolution. New York: Columbia University Press; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaffrelot C, Kumar S. Rise of the plebeians? Delhi: Routledge; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff S. (No?) accounting for expertise. Sci Public Policy. 2003;30:157–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff S. The practices of objectivity in regulatory sciences. In: Camic C, Gross N, Lamont M, editors. Social knowledge in the making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2011. p. 307–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalelkar K. Report of the backward classes commission. Simla: Manager Government of India Press; 1955.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knight A. The Mexican Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986.

  • Knight A. Democratic and revolutionary traditions in Latin America. Bull Lat Am Res. 2001;20:147–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohli A. The success of India’s democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Korolev A. Regime responsiveness to basic needs: a dimensional approach. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2016;51:434–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar V. Demand for caste-wise census in 2011. Chennai: The Hindu; December 24, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee AS. Between apprehension and support: social dialogue, democracy, and industrial restructuring in Central And Eastern Europe. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2010;45:30–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee CW, McQuarrie M, Walker ET. Democratizing inequalities. New York: NYU Press; 2015.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Maldonado Valera CF. La construcción de pactos y consensos en materia de política social: El caso de la Ley General de Desarrollo Social de México, 2000-2008. Serie Políticas Sociales No. 181. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, Naciones Unidas. 2013.

  • Mandal BP. Reservations for backward classes: Mandal Commission report of the Backward Classes Commission 1980. Delhi: Akalank; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell T. Rule of experts. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molyneux M. Mothers at the service of the new poverty agenda: Progresa/Oportunidades, Mexico’s conditional transfer programme. Soc Policy Adm. 2006;40:425–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Natarajan D. Indian census through a hundred years. Delhi: Registrar General of India; 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell G. Delegative democracy. Journal of Democracy. 1994;5:55–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell G. Horizontal accountability in new democracies. J Democr. 1998;9:112–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell G. Democracy, law, and comparative politics. Stud Comp Int Dev. 2001;36:7–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parsai G. Its for states to identify BPL families. Chennai: The Hindu; January 14, 2011.

  • Presidencia de la República. Inaguración del Simposio Pobreza: Conceptos y Metodología. 2001. http://fox.presidencia.gob.mx/actividades/?contenido=812

  • Press Information Bureau. Chidambaram emphasizes need to maintain integrity of census. New Delhi: Government of India Press Release; May 7, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Press Information Bureau. BPL census to be conducted along with caste census. New Delhi: Government of India Press Release; May 19, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • PTI. GoM divided over caste census. Mumbai: The Times of India; July 1, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skocpol T, Somers M. The uses of comparative history in macrosocial inquiry. Comp Stud Soc Hist. 1980;22:174–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Subramanian A. Making merit. Comp Stud Soc Hist. 2015;57:291–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorpe C. Participation as post-Fordist politics. Minerva. 2010;48:389–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorpe C, Gregory J. Producing the post-Fordist public. Science as Culture. 2010;19:273–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valencia LE. Conditional cash transfers as social policy in Latin America. Annu Rev Sociol. 2008;34:475–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Venkatesan J. Supreme court declines to entertain PMK’s petition. Chennai: The Hindu; April 10, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Venkatesan J. Apex court moved for OBC census. Chennai: The Hindu; April 15, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vijayanunni M. BPL surveys are mere BPL surveys, not caste census. Mumbai: The Economic Times; July 31, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vijayanunni M, Deshpande S, Yadav Y, Thorat S, Japhet S, Gowda C, et al. Caste census: senseless separation. Chennai: The Hindu; September 13, 2010a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vijayanunni M, Rao MN, Thorat S, Deshpande S, Yadav Y, Japhet S, et al. Letter to the Group of Ministers on caste census. Chennai: The Hindu; August 13, 2010b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vithayathil T. 2014. The politics of the count. Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University.

  • Vyas N. BJP ducks firm response to Pranab query on census. Chennai: The Hindu; August 7, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Witsoe J. Democracy against development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2013.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yadav Y. Reconfiguration in Indian politics. Econ Polit Wkly. 1996;31:95–104.

  • Yadav Y. Understanding the second democratic upsurge. In: Frankel FR, Hasan Z, Bhargava R, Arora B, editors. Transforming India. Delhi: Oxford University Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yaschine I, Orozco M. The evolving anti-poverty agenda in Mexico. In: Adato M, Hoddinnott J, editors. Conditional cash transfers in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zelliot E. Ambedkar’s world. Navayana: New Delhi; 2013.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Trina Vithayathil received funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (DGE-0228243) and Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (1303274), Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, and the National Institutes of Health Training Program (T32HD007338) while completing her graduate work at Brown University. Diana Graizbord received funding from the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (1303560) and the NSF-Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship in Development and Inequality in the Global South. We are grateful to Aisalkyn Botoeva, Kara Cebulko, Orly Clergé, and Zophia Edwards for their constructive feedback on earlier drafts. We are also grateful to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Global Studies, Providence College, Providence, RI, USA

    Trina Vithayathil

  2. Department of Sociology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Diana Graizbord

  3. Department of Sociology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

    Cedric de Leon

Authors
  1. Trina Vithayathil
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Diana Graizbord
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Cedric de Leon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trina Vithayathil.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vithayathil, T., Graizbord, D. & de Leon, C. The Retreat to Method: the Aftermath of Elite Concession to Civil Society in India and Mexico. St Comp Int Dev 54, 19–39 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-018-9259-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-018-9259-0

Keywords

  • Democratic accountability
  • Alternative institutions
  • Expertise
  • India
  • Mexico