Reviving Studies of Public Institutions

Public Institutions remained at the centre of academic engagement with politics in India during the 50s and 60s. However it may be substantially established that the study of public institutions became quite peripheral in the study of politics which came under the domination of an overwhelming presence of the study of political processes, over a period of time. Only of late the discipline of Political Science in India has been witness to the revival of interest in the study of public institutions. Traditionally public institutions were analysed in terms of rules, procedures and constitutional principles and so these studies remained oblivious of the contextual specificity of Indian Politics. Rather than situating institutions, it took to the task of implanting institutions in India. This triggered the subsequent eclipse of the study of institutions in political science.