The Rich Have Peers, the Poor Have Patrons

Engaging the State in a South Indian City

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2229544
AutoresPatrick Heller (0000-0001-6548-0576, John Brown University, autor de correspondencia), Siddharth Swaminathan (0000-0002-8157-8503, Azim Premji University), Ashutosh Varshney (0000-0002-0215-9790, John Brown University)
Año2023
Volumen129
Número1
Páginas76-122
Fecha de publicación2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/725592
OpenAlexW4383896120
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas82

Research on democracy has shed much light on two kinds of democratic politics: patterns of voting and patterns of associational or movement politics. But there is growing recognition that in order to better understand the quality or depth of democracy, we need to move beyond this dualistic focus to better understand the everyday practices through which citizens can effectively wield their rights; these practices often diverge from the formal equality enshrined in laws and constitutions. We study this question through a large, unique sample survey carried out in a South Indian city. We find that effective citizenship is refracted through the institutional specificities of urban India and that, as a result, the poor access the state through political participation and the rich through particularistic connections to persons of influence. But unlike the conventional celebration of participation as a citizenship-deepening activity, we also find that a substantial part of participation is associated with forms of brokerage that compromise democratic citizenship

Active citizenship · Citizenship · Compromise · Democracy · Economics · Order (exchange · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Voting · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America · Public Administration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies