Can Good Economics Ever Be Good Politics? Case Study of India's Power Sector
In recent years, the power sector in several developing countries has suffered from a frustrating gap between strong, pro-reform rhetoric at the political level, and weak, hesitant implementation of the reform measures on the ground. Focusing on th...
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| Format: | Publication |
| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC: World Bank
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2006/06/6889244/can-good-economics-ever-good-politics-case-study-indias-power-sector http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7032 |
| Summary: | In recent years, the power sector in
several developing countries has suffered from a frustrating
gap between strong, pro-reform rhetoric at the political
level, and weak, hesitant implementation of the reform
measures on the ground. Focusing on the recent experience of
power sector reform in India, this paper looks afresh at the
problem of the rhetoric-implementation gap by taking the
lack of political will as its starting point, and
identifying the ingredients that comprise it in the current
context of India. Assuming that people and institutions are
not impartial but instead respond to political and economic
incentives, it explains how the lack of political will often
reflects rational political behavior. Using this more
realistic framework, it examines the incentives, informal
relationships, and interests that govern the behavior of
people and institutions, and searches for the openings and
opportunities that reformers must pursue. |
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