James Manor
Biographic Data
| ID | 236593 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Manor |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Manor |
| SIGNATURE | MANOR J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leicester |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 72 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 287 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 72 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
India: Awakening and Decay
Excerpts from an essay published by Current History in March 1986
Remembering Paul Brass: A Splendidly Complicated Man
David Potter (1932–2020)
David Potter, who ably edited this journal for many years (1989–1997), recently passed away. He had a fine, admirably open mind – and a congenial, supportive way of engaging critically with contrib
The Making, Ambiguity and Sustainability of Intercaste Accommodations in Rural India
In recent years, the increasing refusal by disadvantaged castes, especially Dalits (ex-untouchables), to accept caste hierarchies has increased intercaste tensions and violence in rural India. But intercaste accommodations aimed at avoiding violence have also increased, more sharply than violent incidents. This study explains how accommodations are made, almost always between senior Dalit and ‘higher’ caste leaders. Contrasts and parallels betwee…
All Politics is ‘Local’?
This chapter examines the complex interplay between the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) and the multiple levels of political representation that comprise India's system of local government, known as panchayati raj , which includes elected councils at the village, block, and district levels. The analysis of the politics of NREGA implementation assesses the roles played by both politicians and administrators operating at each o…
Politics and the Right to Work: India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), passed in 2005, has been among the developing world's most ambitious anti-poverty initiatives. By “guaranteeing” 100 days of work annually to every rural household, NREGA sought to advance the Indian constitution's commitment to securing citizens’ “right to work”. This book is not a technical evaluation of program performance. It offers instead a detailed analysis of the politics surroundin…
The significance of political leaders for social policy expansion in Brazil, China, India and South Africa
This paper examines the roles that political leaders have played in the formulation and implementation of government initiatives to tackle poverty and inequality in Brazil, China, India and South Africa since about 2002. While research on social policy and welfare expansion in the industrialised world has largely ignored leaders, we stress the importance of politics and political agency, since political leaders often exercised decisive influence …
Poverty reduction, inequalities and human development in the BRICS: Policies and outcomes
This paper assesses headway made by governments in Brazil, India, China and South Africa in pursuing three goals: reducing income poverty; reaching the poorest of the poor and reducing inequality. Outcomes vary as we move up the ladder from the first and easiest of these challenges to the third and most daunting. Then the definition of poverty is broadened to include severe shortage of opportunities, liberties and capabilities. The paper discusse…
Removing Barriers between Regions, Disciplines and Viewpoints: Learning from Anthony Low
India’s States: The Struggle to Govern
This article analyzes recent variations in governing strategies in different Indian states. Those variations mean that the ‘Indian state’, as citizens experience it, takes different forms in different states. Between 1989 and mid-2014, no single party could gain a parliamentary majority. That caused a major decentralization of power away from the once dominant Prime Minister’s Office—horizontally to other institutions at the national level, and v…
An Odisha landslide buries both national parties: Assessing the state and parliamentary elections of 2014
In May 2014, a regional party in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal, defied national trends by thrashing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party at both parliamentary and state elections. It offered voters a high-profile regional leader who had radically centralised power and retained the capacity to govern somewhat effectively, even forcefully. It thus countered the appeal of BJP leader Narendra Modi to offer those same things. This ana…
A Precarious Enterprise? Multiple Antagonisms during Year One of the Modi Government
During its first year in power (2014–15), the government of Narendra Modi in India showed itself to be a precarious enterprise. The prime minister was beset by multiple antagonisms. He radically centralised power. This has enabled him to get some things done swiftly, but it has weakened him by choking off reliable information flows from below and by sowing discontent among his party and his supporters. An exercise in fiscal decentralisation to th…
Post-clientelist Initiatives
Something fundamental has been changing in parts of the developing world. Many senior politicians have begun to de-emphasize the distribution of patronage (goods, services, funds and favours) through networks of clients. Political scientists call patronage distribution 'clientelism', and it has long been a crucial – often the crucial – element in politicians' efforts to cultivate support. But in recent times, a significant number have increasingl…
Underestimating Rajni Kothari
Broadening and Deepening Democracy: Political Innovation in Karnataka
After Fifty Years of Political and Social Change: Caste Associations and Politics in India
Government and Opposition in India
Interactions between ruling and opposition parties in India have long been sorely neglected by political analysts. This study finds clear contrasts between interactions at national and state levels in this federal system, and further, often marked variations across the 28 states – each of which has its own Westminster-style legislature. Government–opposition relations range from semi-civilized to caustic, although most cases are situated some at …
What do they know of India who only India know? The uses of comparative politics
When a political system is compared with others, one can learn fundamentally important things about it, which remain obscure or even invisible when it is studied in isolation. This paper illustrates this point by considering India. It focuses on several themes: the radical redistribution of power that has occurred there since 1989; two key consequences of that change; post-clientelist strategies used by Indian politicians in efforts to secure re-…
Decentralisation in Africa: A pathway out of poverty and conflict? Edited by Gordon Crawford and Christof Hartmann
Journal Article Decentralisation in Africa: A pathway out of poverty and conflict? Edited by Gordon Crawford and Christof Hartmann Get access Decentralisation in Africa: A pathway out of poverty and conflict? Edited by Gordon Crawford and Christof Hartmann. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008. 260 pp.£39.95 (paperback). ISBN 978 9 05356 934 4. James Manor James Manor Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London Search for other…
Successful Governance Reforms in Two Indian States: Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
This study analyses governance reforms in two southern states in India's federal system, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Two reforms are considered in each state: one rural and one urban. \n \nIn Karnataka, we examine the Bhoomi programme, which used information technology to provide farmers with land documents, and the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, which changed the operations of several municipal agencies. \n \nIn Andhra Pradesh, we examine the re…
Renewing the Debate on Decentralisation
There is an extensive literature on decentralisation, but most studies focus on one (or only a few) of the many cases that have emerged in recent years. The three papers which follow offer a welcome corrective by considering substantial numbers of countries, and by identifying priorities for future research. Treisman asks why governments do (or do not) pursue fiscal decentralisation and reaches conclusions that are both fresh and controversial. O…
Democratisation with Inclusion: Political reforms and people’s empowerment at the grassroots
This paper reviews recent approaches by developing country governments to include ordinary people, particularly the poor, in democratic processes so as to benefit the people and protect democracy itself. Three issues currently characterise all aspects of government: centrist approaches, fiscal constraints, and resistance to reform. There have been five types of approaches to political reform, including elected councils, user committees, and other…
User Committees: A Potentially Damaging Second Wave of Decentralisation
Richard C. Crook y James Manor. Democracy and decentralization in South Asia and West Africa . Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998. 335 p
Changing state, changing society in India
States or markets?: Neo-Liberalism and the Development Policy Debate
Small-Time Political Fixers in India's States: Towel over Armpit
Research Article| September 01 2000 Small-Time Political Fixers in India's States: "Towel over Armpit" James Manor James Manor Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (2000) 40 (5): 816–835. https://doi.org/10.2307/3021178 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Sear…
User Committees: A Potentially Damaging Second Wave of Decentralisation
Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis
India Defies the Odds: Making Federalism Work
India Defies the OddsMaking Federalism Work James Manor (bio) To understand how India’s democracy works, and how it manages demands from social groups for greater power, resources, autonomy, and respect, it is essential to understand Indian federalism. That, in turn, requires us to address two questions. First, why have relations between New Delhi and the various state governments (there are at present 25) usually remained manageable? Second, why…
How and Why Liberal and Representative Politics Emerged in India
How did liberal, representative politics take root in India during the first phase after independence? An adequate explanation must consider certain aspects of Hindu culture and Indian social structure, the distinctive character of British rule and the formidable Indian response to it. It must also assess the role of formal political institutions, which the British had created and the Indians adapted, and relations between Indian nationalists and…
Elite Perceptions of the Poor: Reflections for a Comparative Research Project
Little is known about the ways in which the elites perceive the poor, especially in those societies where poverty is most prevalent. The poor are dependent on the elites, but the elites are also affected by the poor: their presence creates negative external effects in the lives of the elites (threats such as crime, contagion, pollution, vagrancy and rebellion) but they also represent opportunities for the established strata (as potential workers,…
Ethnicity' and politics in India
Journal Article ‘Ethnicity’ and politics in India Get access James Manor James Manor Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 72, Issue 3, July 1996, Pages 459–475, https://doi.org/10.2307/2625551 Published: 01 July 1996
Making the new Commonwealth
Journal Article Making the new Commonwealth Get access Making the new Commonwealth. By R. J. Moore. Oxford: Clarendon. 1987. 218pp. Index. £25.00. ISBN 0 198 20112 5. James Manor James Manor 1University of Sussex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 64, Issue 4, autumn 1988, Page 685, https://doi.org/10.2307/2626097 Published: 01 October 1988
India's political administrators, 1919–1983
India's political administrators, 1919–1983 Get access India's political administrators, 1919–1983. By David C. Potter. Oxford: Clarendon. 1986. 289pp. Index. £27.50. ISBN 0 19 821574 6. James Manor James Manor 1Institute of Development Studies, Sussex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 64, Issue 1, Winter 1987, Pages 153–154, https://doi.org/10.2307/2621566 Published: 01 January…
What do they know of India who only India know? The uses of comparative politics
When a political system is compared with others, one can learn fundamentally important things about it, which remain obscure or even invisible when it is studied in isolation. This paper illustrates this point by considering India. It focuses on several themes: the radical redistribution of power that has occurred there since 1989; two key consequences of that change; post-clientelist strategies used by Indian politicians in efforts to secure re-…
British Policy Towards the Indian States, 1905-1939
Prior to 1947 approximately one-third of the Indian sub-continent was broken up into 635 Indian States which were ruled by princes of varying rank. In the process of consolidating their empire in India the British had, during the first half of the nineteenth century, deprived the princes of the power to conduct external relations with each other or with foreign powers. Internally the princes were theoretically independent but their sovereignty in…
India’s States: The Struggle to Govern
This article analyzes recent variations in governing strategies in different Indian states. Those variations mean that the ‘Indian state’, as citizens experience it, takes different forms in different states. Between 1989 and mid-2014, no single party could gain a parliamentary majority. That caused a major decentralization of power away from the once dominant Prime Minister’s Office—horizontally to other institutions at the national level, and v…
The failure of political integration in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 1
(1979). The failure of political integration in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) The Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 21-46
Democratic decentralisation and institutional performance: Four Asian and African experiences compared
Party Decay and Political Crisis in India
(1981). Party Decay and Political Crisis in India. The Washington Quarterly: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 25-40
Princely Mysore before the Storm: The Statelevel Political System of India's Model State 1920-1936
More than one-third of the area of Britain's Indian empire and over one-quarter of its population were ruled by the Indian princes. But despite its size, princely India has largely remained the province of the pulp journalist to whom we owe our hackneyed view of the princes as a bizarre assortment of spendthrifts, torturers and voluptuaries. Recently, serious scholars have begun to publish material on the princes, but the focus has mainly been up…
Poverty reduction, inequalities and human development in the BRICS: Policies and outcomes
This paper assesses headway made by governments in Brazil, India, China and South Africa in pursuing three goals: reducing income poverty; reaching the poorest of the poor and reducing inequality. Outcomes vary as we move up the ladder from the first and easiest of these challenges to the third and most daunting. Then the definition of poverty is broadened to include severe shortage of opportunities, liberties and capabilities. The paper discusse…
Government and Opposition in India
Interactions between ruling and opposition parties in India have long been sorely neglected by political analysts. This study finds clear contrasts between interactions at national and state levels in this federal system, and further, often marked variations across the 28 states – each of which has its own Westminster-style legislature. Government–opposition relations range from semi-civilized to caustic, although most cases are situated some at …
Elite Perceptions of Poverty: South Africa
Summaries Elite perceptions of poverty in South Africa are affected by the distinctive character of social segmentation there. The huge size of segments and the immense distances (social, economic and psychological) between elites and the poor within segments, discourages elites from assisting poor people within their segments. They look instead to government to help the poor in general. The ruling ANC elite, unlike most elites, is fully prepared…
The significance of political leaders for social policy expansion in Brazil, China, India and South Africa
This paper examines the roles that political leaders have played in the formulation and implementation of government initiatives to tackle poverty and inequality in Brazil, China, India and South Africa since about 2002. While research on social policy and welfare expansion in the industrialised world has largely ignored leaders, we stress the importance of politics and political agency, since political leaders often exercised decisive influence …
An Odisha landslide buries both national parties: Assessing the state and parliamentary elections of 2014
In May 2014, a regional party in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal, defied national trends by thrashing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party at both parliamentary and state elections. It offered voters a high-profile regional leader who had radically centralised power and retained the capacity to govern somewhat effectively, even forcefully. It thus countered the appeal of BJP leader Narendra Modi to offer those same things. This ana…
A Precarious Enterprise? Multiple Antagonisms during Year One of the Modi Government
During its first year in power (2014–15), the government of Narendra Modi in India showed itself to be a precarious enterprise. The prime minister was beset by multiple antagonisms. He radically centralised power. This has enabled him to get some things done swiftly, but it has weakened him by choking off reliable information flows from below and by sowing discontent among his party and his supporters. An exercise in fiscal decentralisation to th…
Successful Governance Reforms in Two Indian States: Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
This study analyses governance reforms in two southern states in India's federal system, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Two reforms are considered in each state: one rural and one urban. \n \nIn Karnataka, we examine the Bhoomi programme, which used information technology to provide farmers with land documents, and the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, which changed the operations of several municipal agencies. \n \nIn Andhra Pradesh, we examine the re…
Democratic Decentralization in Africa and Asia
This article summarizes recent research on one of the developmental fashions of our time ? democratic decentralization. After discussing various definitions of ‘decentralization’, it surveys the benefits that can follow when democratic decentralization works well. Among these are greater responsiveness, increased participation and two?way information flow between state and society, and reductions in absenteeism by local?level government employees…
Kengal hanumanthaiah in Mysore: The style and strategy of individual leadership in the integration of a region's politics
Princely Mysore before the Storm: The Statelevel Political System of India's Model State 1920-1936
More than one-third of the area of Britain's Indian empire and over one-quarter of its population were ruled by the Indian princes. But despite its size, princely India has largely remained the province of the pulp journalist to whom we owe our hackneyed view of the princes as a bizarre assortment of spendthrifts, torturers and voluptuaries. Recently, serious scholars have begun to publish material on the princes, but the focus has mainly been up…
Caste Associations in South India: A Comparative Analysis
Indira and after: The decay of party organisation in India
Sri Lanka: A Survey
Journal Article Sri Lanka: A Survey Get access Sri Lanka: A Survey. Edited by K. M. de Silva. London: C. Hurst for the Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg. 1977. 496 pp. £12⋅00. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 54, Issue 2, April 1978, Pages 350–351, https://doi.org/10.2307/2615697 Published: 01 April 1978
Where Congress Survived: Five States in the Indian General Election of 1977
Research Article| August 01 1978 Where Congress Survived: Five States in the Indian General Election of 1977 James Manor James Manor Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1949) 18 (8): 785–803. https://doi.org/10.2307/2643558 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Ic…
The failure of political integration in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 1
(1979). The failure of political integration in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) The Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 21-46
Thailand: Origins of Military Rule and Burma: Military Rule and the Politics of Stagnation
Modern Sri Lanka: A Society in Transition
Caste and Family in the Politics of the Sinhalese 1947–1976
Journal Article Caste and Family in the Politics of the Sinhalese 1947–1976 Get access Caste and Family in the Politics of the Sinhalese 1947–1976. By Jiggins Janice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1979. 189 pp. £9.50. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 56, Issue 1, January 1980, Pages 190–191, https://doi.org/10.2307/26158…
Party Decay and Political Crisis in India
(1981). Party Decay and Political Crisis in India. The Washington Quarterly: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 25-40
Mrs Gandhi
Journal Article Mrs Gandhi Get access Mrs Gandhi. By Dom Moraes. London: Cape. 1980. 336 pp. £9.50. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 2, Spring 1981, Pages 367–368, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619221 Published: 01 April 1981
The Emergence of Modern India
Journal Article The Emergence of Modern India Get access The Emergence of Modern India. By Arthur Lall. New York, Guildford: Columbia University Press. 1981. 260 pp.$22.00. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 58, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Pages 174–175, https://doi.org/10.2307/2618337 Published: 01 January 1981
Coup Theories and Officers’ Motives: Sri Lanka in Perspective
Journal Article Coup Theories and Officers’ Motives: Sri Lanka in Perspective Get access Coup Theories and Officers’ Motives: Sri Lanka in Perspective. By Donald L. Horowitz. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1981. 239 pp. £8.90. Pb: £3.90. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 3, Summer 1981, Page 525, https://doi.…
A History of Sri Lanka
Journal Article A History of Sri Lanka Get access A History of Sri Lanka. By K. M. de Silva. London: Hurst; Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press. 1982. 603 pp. Index. £18.50. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 58, Issue 4, Autumn 1982, Pages 729–730, https://doi.org/10.2307/2618538 Published: 01 October 1982
Breaching a precedent: Lord Soulbury in Sri Lanka
India at the polls, 1980: A study of the parliamentary elections
Journal Article India at the polls, 1980: a study of the parliamentary elections Get access India at the polls, 1980: a study of the parliamentary elections. By Myron Weiner. Washington: American Enterprise Institute. 1983. 198pp. Pb. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 60, Issue 2, Spring 1984, Page 353, https://doi.org/10.2307/261…
An introduction to south Asia
Journal Article An introduction to south Asia Get access An introduction to south Asia. By B. H. Farmer. London, New York: Methuen. 1983. 253 pp. Index. £11.95. Pb.: £5.50. James Manor James Manor 1University of Leicester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 60, Issue 3, Summer 1984, Page 523, https://doi.org/10.2307/2617676 Published: 01 July 1984
British Policy Towards the Indian States, 1905-1939
Prior to 1947 approximately one-third of the Indian sub-continent was broken up into 635 Indian States which were ruled by princes of varying rank. In the process of consolidating their empire in India the British had, during the first half of the nineteenth century, deprived the princes of the power to conduct external relations with each other or with foreign powers. Internally the princes were theoretically independent but their sovereignty in…
The Indian general election of 1984
Causes of Conflict: Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean Strategy
Research Article| December 01 1985 Causes of Conflict: Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean Strategy James Manor, James Manor Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gerald Segal Gerald Segal Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1956) 25 (12): 1165–1185. https://doi.org/10.2307/2644280 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data …
India
Research Article| March 01 1986 India: Awakening and Decay James Manor James Manor Visiting Professor of Government, Harvard University James Manor has taught at Yale and at the universities of Leicester and London in England. He is the editor of the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics and recently edited Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Go…
Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis
Tried, then Abandoned: Economic Liberalisation in India
Rajiv Gandhi's plans to cut back the system of controls which curtail market forces in India have largely failed, partly because he has been irresolute and maladroit in pursuing this goal, but mainly because the interests opposing it are too powerful. But the recent emergence of redistributive programmes in many Indian states suggests that the developmental state lives on there. Resumen Resumen Intento y subsecuente abandono de la liberalización …
The liberation of Goa: A participant's view of history
The liberation of Goa: a participant's view of history Get access The liberation of Goa: a participant's view of history. By P. D. Gaitonde. London: Hurst; New York: St Martin's. 1987. 192pp. Index. £16.50. ISBN 1 85065 024 1. James Manor James Manor 1Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 63, Issue 4, autumn 1987, Page 705, http…
Political science (57 works) · Law (42 works) · Politics (34 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Law (29 works) · Economics (28 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (25 works) · History (20 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (19 works) · Development economics (17 works)