Arenas of Contestation

This book is an attempt to put together some of Professor Kuldeep Mathur’s research essays that focus on an analysis of India’s public policies in the pre- and post- 91 era. These essays have been published as articles in journals, as monographs, or included as chapters in books edited by others. These are not micro studies of specific public policies in India, but reflect or attempt to explore the visible and often invisible factors involved in the processes of public policy making in India. The chapters in the book focus on a common theme—the complexity of public policy making in a milieu of democratic politics in today’s post-liberalized India, where, in addition to state institutions, the corporate sector and civil society organizations have begun to play a more substantive and visible role in producing public policy. These are being formalized through the creation of new kinds of agencies and partnerships. A multi-actored ‘network governance’ structure is replacing the single focal point of government. Some chapters in this book have explored the actual process of policy formulation in specific sectors.