Zusammenfassung:

India is home to some of the most glaring forms of social, economic and political inequalities. Despite the constitutional commitment to address these inequalities, the inadequate provision of public services in terms of quality, efficiency and scale has led to a lack of even the most basic level of livelihood support, social security and opportunity for large parts of the population. In Delhi, the relatively novel Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has made public service provision a political priority. This has not only contributed to its electoral success in India’s capital in three consecutive elections, but its “Delhi governance model” is now also a selling point in other states. The wide, cross-class support for the AAP and its public service reforms in Delhi is somewhat puzzling: To date, research on Indian middle classes suggests that firstly, from a self-interested point of view, these groups are often sceptical with regard to the often-low-quality services provided by the public sector and tend to rather “exit” to private provision than use their “voice” to improve public services. Secondly, allyship with lower classes to combat inequality by vying for more redistribution and better public services via a political party has so far been rather unknown in the political arenas of the Indian north. In this project, I explore 1) under which circumstances the middle classes in India support reforms to increase the quality of public service provision, 2) how the distributional effects of increased quality public services materialise across social classes and 3) how this affects the social and political attitudes and behaviours of urban middle-class Indians. To examine these issues in more detail, I will use a mixed-methods approach based on both ethnographic and survey data collection, as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Mitwirkende:

• Katharina Michaelowa
• Sofie Heintz

Kontakte:

Extern:

Sofie Heintz (UZH)

Forschungsbereiche:

• Politische Ökonomie der Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer

Transversale Forschungsschwerpunkte:

• Ungleichheit und Verteilungspolitik