“Governing India’s Metropolises” by RUET Joël and TAWA LAMA-REWAL Stéphanie

Urban governance today is characterized by a multiplicity of actors involved in the management of local affairs. The questions for inquiry are: who are the individuals and institutions, public and private, who actually plan and manage urban affairs? In what ways do they do so? Whose interests are accommodated, and under what conditions can co-operative action be taken? And, more generally, in what ways are interactions between the many actors of urban governance patterned?

This volume, based on a series of case studies from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad, discusses the governance of Indian metropolises with these questions in mind. It analyses the changes that have taken place in governance over the last 15 years as a result of liberalization and decentralization, focusing on six collective services: primary education, healthcare, subsidized food, slum rehabilitation, water and sanitation, and solid waste management.

The book documents the continued appropriation of the state by an enlarged elite (including the vast middle class) and an incomplete democratization of urban local bodies (evident in the lack of empowerment of municipal councilors), which goes along with a new economic regime as defined by new modes of engagement between the private sector and the state. Also, the concept of governance as it is operationalized in this volume highlights the importance of class in interactions between actors. By disentangling formal elements of governance (legitimized by the state) from informal ones (involving actors who are beyond the recognition of the state) the book ultimately reveals various power equations at play.

This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of sociology, political science, development studies, development economics, urban planning, and public policy studies.

Part A: Themes and Issues in Governance
1.    Engaging with the Concept of Governance in the Study of Indian Metropolises
Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
2.    A Comparative Overview of Urban Governance in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai
Archana Ghosh, Loraine Kennedy, Joël Ruet, Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, and Marie-Hélène Zérah
3.    New Patterns of Participation Shaping Urban Governance
Loraine Kennedy
4.    Class in Metropolitan India: The Rise of the Middle Classes
Jos Mooij and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
5.    Vertical Governance:  Brokerage, Patronage and Corruption in Indian Metropolises
Girish Kumar and Frédéric Landy (with T. François, D. Ruby and P. Sekhsaria)
Part B: Sectors, Programmes, Access, and Publicness in Urban Governance
6.    Primary education in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata: Governance by Resignation, Privatization by Default
Jos Mooij and Jennifer Jalal
7.    Assessing Urban Governance through the Prism of Healthcare Services in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai
Loraine Kennedy, Ravi Duggal and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
8.    From Polarization to Urban De-integration: Water and Sanitation in Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad
Joël Ruet, Keshab Das, Agnès Huchon, and Guillaume Tricot
9.    Participatory Urban Governance and Slum Development in Hyderabad and Kolkata
Archana Ghosh
10.    Reforming Solid Waste Management in Mumbai and Hyderabad: Policy Convergence, Distinctive Processes
Marie-Hélène Zérah
11.    Thinking the Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai Experience: Emerging Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention
Joël Ruet