Managing Political Space :
party practices and marginalised
people’s agency in the governance of
rural West Bengal
Glyn Williams, S Nandigama, D Chakrabarty, D
Bhattacharyya BV Thampi and D Narayana
Embedding Poor People’s Voices in Local Governance
(An ESRC-DFID funded project)
Email: glyn.williams@sheffield.ac.uk
Governance, Political Society and the
Poor
A move away from ‘good governance’ debates:
• From formal to informal structures of power
• From a state-focused perspective to thinking
about the implications for (and strategies of) the
marginalised.
Starting points for understanding:
• Blom Hansen and multiple/fractured authority
• Chatterjee and ‘the politics of the governed’
Blom Hansen: parallel forms of authority – the
formal state, the ‘big man’, and the community
To control the government, the state and the powers of
legislation are important dimensions of the exercise of
power in India. These forms of authority are also easily
subverted and negotiated, and can be challenged in
multiple ways because their efficacy depends on the
informal sovereigns depicted earlier.
(Blom Hansen, 2005: 191)
Chatterjee: the politics of the governed as a
productive space for negotiation
[T]he actual transactions over the everyday distribution of
rights and entitlements lead over time to substantial
redefinitions of property and law within the actually
existing modern state. The paralegal, then, despite its
ambiguous and supplementary status in relation to the
legal, is not some pathological condition of retarded
modernity, but rather part of the very process of the
historical constitution of modernity in most of the world.
(Chatterjee, 2004: 75)
Governance, Political Society and the
Poor
For both authors, informality:
• is a vital part of actually experienced forms of
governance
• has its own structures of legitimacy
Implications of informality for the poor:
• locking the poor within patronage relationships?
• a space for the de facto renegotiation of rights?
West Bengal – political society or party
society?
West Bengal’s exceptional political history:
• The ascendancy of the Left
• Land reform
• Decentralised governance.
Understanding the LFG’s longevity:
• The panchayats new site of brokerage
• The CPI(M) as provider of ‘discipline and
development’
• Current challenges – a loss of moral authority?
The CPI(M)’s dominance of party society:
“It can act like a family for the socially marginalised
women giving them access to social justice. It can make
use of the traditional family as a ground of mobilization.
Again, the party can endorse selective distribution of
benefits in some contexts. It can allow an underbelly of
petty corruption and crude mechanisms of coercion.”
(Dasgupta, 2009: 80)
Rural Governance: key questions
Empirical Questions:
• How is political authority established and
exercised?
• How do poor people express their agency within
West Bengal’s party-politicised public space?
Wider Questions:
• How should we understand political society?
• What are the implications for intentional
programmes of governance reform?
Our West Bengal study areas…
The study areas:
• Dubrajpur Block,
Birbhum
• Mayureswar 1 Block,
Birbhum
Core contrasts:
• Party political
composition
• Agriculture and
economy
Exercising Power: Controlling Political
Space
Patronage and resource distribution:
• Dubrajpur – the CPI(M)’s as ‘universal patron’
• Mayreswar I – agrarian-based patronage
Authority, Mediation and Violence:
• Dubrajpur – hegemony and mediation
• Mayreswar I – competition and open violence
Surveillance and the Control of Public Space:
• Dubrajpur – all public activity as visible to the
CPI(M)
“…last term another party [i.e. the CPI(M)]
favoured a part of the [panchayat’s] population
who supported it for being in beneficiary lists,
through active exclusion of non-supporters. This
time around, the opposite is happening. The
ruling alliance will take care of the other half
that was excluded last time around from the
beneficiary lists… all is well for everyone.”
(Senior bureaucrat, Mayureswar-I Block office:
interview 10/11/09).
Exercising Power: Controlling Political
Space
Patronage and resource distribution:
• Dubrajpur – the CPI(M)’s as ‘universal patron’
• Mayreswar I – agrarian-based patronage
Authority, Mediation and Violence:
• Dubrajpur – hegemony and mediation
• Mayreswar I – competition and open violence
Surveillance and the Control of Public Space:
• Dubrajpur – all public activity as visible to the
CPI(M)
“The present leaders do not feel the need to come
and meet the local people, rather the common
people are supposed to approach them for help.
The party leaders are no longer interested to
stand by the side of the people like in earlier
times and often make false promises to the
people. The common people are tired and fed up
with the false promises.”
(interviewee: Dubrajpur, 26/03/09)
Exercising Power: Controlling Political
Space
Patronage and resource distribution:
• Dubrajpur – the CPI(M)’s as ‘universal patron’
• Mayreswar I – agrarian-based patronage
Authority, Mediation and Violence:
• Dubrajpur – hegemony and mediation
• Mayreswar I – competition and open violence
Surveillance and the Control of Public Space:
• Dubrajpur – all public activity as visible to the
CPI(M)
The Space for Poor People’s Agency
Dubrajpur:
• Agency expressed through the party – via
strategies to access key party representatives
Mayreswar I:
• A greater degree of choice - ‘floating voters’ able
to reinvent their political allegiances
Authority and Agency in the Case Study Panchayats…
Dubrajpur
Strategies of the
Poorest
Patterns of Authority
Patronage
Coercion
Mayureswar I
Largely monopolised by CPI(M) and Rival landowner-based support groups,
(rhetorically) embraces whole
and overtly partisan distribution of
panchayat.
state resources by party in power
Generalised and controlled threats
against anyone resisting CPI(M)
rule, actual violence more rare.
Violent and dramatic public rivalry
between political actors – but not
directed at the public in general.
Surveillance Strong – a clear sense that the
CPI(M) will note all public acts and
speech throughout the panchayat.
Weak – self-censorship largely
restricted to formal public arenas;
open criticism of politicians elsewhere.
‘Key
Public performances of loyalty,
Supporters’ good links to key CPI(M) powerbrokers.
‘Political
Attempts to build links with wellNeutrals’ placed CPI(M) figures.
Public performances of loyalty, clear
expectations of support from AITC.
‘Political
Outcasts’
Limited – covert search for
alternative sources of support.
Opportunities to lobby and/or switch
allegiance to new power-holders.
Reliance on rival CPI(M) patrons for
non-state based forms of support.
Wider Questions:
Understanding party society – Chatterjee or Blom
Hansen?
• Evidence for ‘the politics of the governed’ - but not all
struggles are directed at state resources
• Official governance practices still symbiotically linked
with informal authority
Implications for governance reform:
• Reforming formal governance is only part of the picture
• Poor people’s agency does not equate to ‘emancipation’
• Reform processes must understand the informal