English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Using official statistics, bureaucratic registers and ethnographic material collected from the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from six districts across six Indian states, the article explains under what conditions the capacity of last-mile bureaucracy matters for the performance of pro-poor welfare programmes in the Indian federal polity. In seeking to address the presence of heterogenous welfare outcomes in the districts of India, the article underscores the salience of last-mile bureaucrats and the extent to which the politicization of redistributive struggles might contribute to local state capacity to deliver welfare services, a hitherto under-researched aspect in comparative social development research. Challenging the conventional thesis that only a strong autonomous state succeeds in implementing welfare programmes, the article further argues that effective policy implementation can occur within the peculiar environment of relatively low-capacity last-mile bureaucracies even in the face of adverse socioeconomic circumstances. In short, the article shifts attention to the understudied relationship between the capacity of last-mile bureaucracy and welfare outcomes in India.

Wages of politics or last-mile welfare? The case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)