Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies

The resurgence of deliberative institutions in the developing world has prompted a renewed interest in the dynamics of citizen engagement. Using text-as-data methods on an original corpus of village assembly transcripts from rural Tamil Nadu, India...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Parthasarathy, Ramya, Rao, Vijayendra, Palaniswamy, Nethra
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:	GENDER VILLAGE DEMOCRACY PARTICIPATION DELIBERATION INEQUALITY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/582551498568606865/Deliberative-inequality-a-text-as-data-study-of-Tamil-Nadus-village-assemblies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27621

id	okr-10986-27621
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-276212021-06-08T14:42:47Z Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies Parthasarathy, Ramya Rao, Vijayendra Palaniswamy, Nethra GENDER VILLAGE DEMOCRACY PARTICIPATION DELIBERATION INEQUALITY The resurgence of deliberative institutions in the developing world has prompted a renewed interest in the dynamics of citizen engagement. Using text-as-data methods on an original corpus of village assembly transcripts from rural Tamil Nadu, India, this paper opens the "black box" of deliberation to examine the gendered and status-based patterns of influence. Drawing on normative theories of deliberation, this analysis identifies a set of clear empirical standards for “good” deliberation, based on an individual's ability both to speak and be heard, and uses natural language processing methods to generate these measures. The study first shows that these assemblies are not mere "talking shop" for state officials to bluster and read banal announcements, but rather, provide opportunities for citizens to challenge their elected officials, demand transparency, and provide information about authentic local development needs. Second, the study finds that across multiple measures of deliberative influence, women are at a disadvantage relative to men; women are less likely to speak, set the agenda, and receive a relevant response from state officials. Finally, the paper shows that although quotas for women on village councils have little impact on the likelihood that they speak, they do improve the likelihood that female citizens are heard. 2017-07-18T22:12:16Z 2017-07-18T22:12:16Z 2017-06 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/582551498568606865/Deliberative-inequality-a-text-as-data-study-of-Tamil-Nadus-village-assemblies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27621 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8119 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia India
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	GENDER VILLAGE DEMOCRACY PARTICIPATION DELIBERATION INEQUALITY
spellingShingle	GENDER VILLAGE DEMOCRACY PARTICIPATION DELIBERATION INEQUALITY Parthasarathy, Ramya Rao, Vijayendra Palaniswamy, Nethra Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
geographic_facet	South Asia India
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8119
description	The resurgence of deliberative institutions in the developing world has prompted a renewed interest in the dynamics of citizen engagement. Using text-as-data methods on an original corpus of village assembly transcripts from rural Tamil Nadu, India, this paper opens the "black box" of deliberation to examine the gendered and status-based patterns of influence. Drawing on normative theories of deliberation, this analysis identifies a set of clear empirical standards for “good” deliberation, based on an individual's ability both to speak and be heard, and uses natural language processing methods to generate these measures. The study first shows that these assemblies are not mere "talking shop" for state officials to bluster and read banal announcements, but rather, provide opportunities for citizens to challenge their elected officials, demand transparency, and provide information about authentic local development needs. Second, the study finds that across multiple measures of deliberative influence, women are at a disadvantage relative to men; women are less likely to speak, set the agenda, and receive a relevant response from state officials. Finally, the paper shows that although quotas for women on village councils have little impact on the likelihood that they speak, they do improve the likelihood that female citizens are heard.
format	Working Paper
author	Parthasarathy, Ramya Rao, Vijayendra Palaniswamy, Nethra
author_facet	Parthasarathy, Ramya Rao, Vijayendra Palaniswamy, Nethra
author_sort	Parthasarathy, Ramya
title	Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
title_short	Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
title_full	Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
title_fullStr	Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
title_full_unstemmed	Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies
title_sort	deliberative inequality : a text-as-data study of tamil nadu's village assemblies
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2017
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/582551498568606865/Deliberative-inequality-a-text-as-data-study-of-Tamil-Nadus-village-assemblies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27621
_version_	1764465498341244928

Deliberative Inequality : A Text-As-Data Study of Tamil Nadu's Village Assemblies

Similar Items