In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Komal Preet Kaur, covers the new article by Adam Michael Auerbach, Shikhar Singh and Tariq Thachil, “Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India’s Small-Town Councils.”
Decentralization and devolution are fundamental pillars of political reforms of the 20th century. These reforms aim to shift administrative power and authority to local and regional levels to bring decision-making closer to the people and to devise policy solutions more attuned to local challenges and the socio-economic fabric of the area. Although these reforms are championed for promoting inclusive governance, they often rest on the unexamined assumption that local officials and administrators possess the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies for effective governance. This assumption raises critical questions: Do local authorities genuinely have the knowledge required for decentralized governance? And what are the consequences if they do not? Researchers Adam Michael Auerbach, Shikhar Singh, and Tariq Thachil explored these questions in the context of small-town municipal councils in north India.
Their research, published in the American Political Science Review in 2024, focuses on small towns in the Indian state of Rajasthan. These towns, with populations under 500,000 are often ignored in urban governance research, despite housing a significant share of the world’s urban population. In these towns, local governance is entrusted to ward councilors, who are elected by citizens for five-year terms to staff the municipal council. The authors surveyed 1,142 ward councilors and 923 runner-up candidates from recent municipal council elections to learn their levels of “procedural knowledge” about the general rules, responsibilities, and regulations of the local government they were elected to lead.
The research reveals a sobering reality: the councilors elected to govern these small towns possessed alarmingly low levels of knowledge necessary to perform their core duties. For instance, a strikingly low 2% of politicians could correctly identify the constitutional amendment that empowered them, only 7% had accurate knowledge of their town’s master plan, and just 9% knew the stipulated date for the crucial annual town budget meeting.
The lack of procedural knowledge regarding both revenue and spending-side responsibilities has implications for the effectiveness of councilors. The survey findings indicate that more knowledgeable councilors are more active in budgetary processes, have better access to
elites, and are more proactive in assisting citizens. In other words, procedural knowledge shapes the ability of councilors to represent their constituents effectively.
“Councilors are expected to be frontline governance enablers tasked with making informed decisions for local communities.”The researchers also uncovered unevenness across officials in the extent to which they possess procedural knowledge. Specifically, they found women and members of historically disadvantaged groups constituted a higher proportion of uninformed elected officials. In India, affirmative action policies mandate reserved seats for women and underrepresented caste groups to ensure more inclusive representation in politics. However, the pronounced knowledge deficits within these groups highlight a significant challenge: it hinders their ability to effectively advocate for their communities, perpetuating existing cycles of disadvantage and marginalization. Additionally, these findings provide ammunition to critics who argue that affirmative action leads to the election of less competent officials, thereby eroding public trust in elected representatives and weakening support for affirmative action policies overall.
Finally, the authors explore possible pathways for councilors to acquire procedural knowledge. Ideally, holding office might itself confer such abilities. They focus on near-winners and losers of close elections to show winning office did not significantly increase knowledge, even 18 months after the election. They find suggestive evidence of more gradual knowledge acquisition following multiple terms in office. However, this pathway is limited by the high rates of turnover in their study setting, where the vast majority of councilors are first-time office holders.
Overall, these results suggest caution in enacting decentralizing reforms without corresponding efforts to improve the capacity of local actors. Councilors are expected to be frontline governance enablers tasked with making informed decisions for local communities. However, most do not know how to govern effectively; many will only be in office for one term; and the knowledge gaps they demonstrate are especially pronounced among officials expected to represent marginalized constituents. In this context, the authors emphasize the need for training officials in how to govern shortly after they win office. Empowering local communities to govern must be accompanied by helping them learn how to govern.
- AUERBACH, ADAM MICHAEL, SHIKHAR SINGH, and TARIQ THACHIL. 2024. “Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India’s Small-Town Councils”. American Political Science Review, 1–19.
- About the APSA Public Scholarship Program.