Constrained Expertise in India and China: Knowledge and Power in Policymaking

by Manjari Mahajan (Editor), Mark Frazier (Editor)

Overview

Constrained Expertise in India and China explores what kinds of knowledge and knowledge purveyors get mobilized and privileged, and what gets sidelined in policymaking in India and China. Through its detailed empirical studies in both countries, the volume illuminates a trend of increasing concentration of political authority which has frequently demanded that experts be aligned with the central government’s agenda. Spaces are shrinking for divergent and oppositional viewpoints, whether these come from the bureaucracy, academia, think tanks, or NGOs. The declining autonomy of experts has been exacerbated by institutional structures, since knowledge purveyors that directly contribute to policymaking typically have been embedded within bureaucracies or otherwise dependent on the state rather than occupying independent bases. Both countries face the challenge of how to build and sustain ecosystems of heterogeneous experts that are not simply echo chambers of executive authority.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048562794
Publisher:	Amsterdam University Press
Publication date:	06/17/2025
Series:	Politics and International Relations in Asia , #2
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Manjari Mahajan is Associate Professor of International Affairs, and the Starr Professor and Co-Director of the India China Institute at The New School. Her work is on global health, politics of science and technology, development, and philanthrocapitalism. Mark W. Frazier is Professor of Politics, and the Starr Professor and Co-Director of the India China Institute at The New School. His research examines China’s political economy in comparative perspective, including social policy and the politics of population aging.

Table of Contents

Introduction Manjari Mahajan and Mark W. Frazier
PART I: MOBILIZING EXPERTISE: INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES AND HIERARCHIES WITHIN STATES
Chapter 1 Policymaking and Expertise in Telangana State: Mediating Knowledge and Interests in Pursuit of Economic Development and Social Justice in Hyderabad - Loraine Kennedy and Ram Mohan Chitta
Chapter 2 Experts, Policymaking, and China’s Responses to Covid-19, Xuefei Ren
Chapter 3 Experts and Policymakers in China’s Urban Waste Governance, Ceren Ergenc
Chapter 4 Beyond Local State Corporatism and Entrepreneurial Political Selves: A Governance Assemblage Perspective on the Management of Foreigners in a Chinese County, Ka-Kin Cheuk
PART II: LOGICS OF EXCLUSION - AND OCCASIONAL INCLUSION: POLICYMAKING AND KNOWLEDGE FROM LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Chapter 5 Gendering Scholar Activism in China’s Rural Development, Yang Zhan
Chapter 6 Shifting Locations of Knowledge Production for Health Policies: Community Engagement in Palliative Care in the Indian State of Kerala, C U Thresia
Chapter 7 Challenging the Centralized Hierarchy of Civil Nuclear Policy and Expertise in India: Anti-nuclear Opposition from the mid-2000s to late-2010s, Kesava Chandra Varigonda
Chapter 8 Struggle for Stability: Coping with Covid-19 Community-Led Actions and Learning from M-East Ward of Mumbai, Avinash Madhale
PART III: COMPARISONS AND GLOBAL FLOWS
Chapter 9 Knowledge and Power: China’s High-tech Industry and the Perils of a Shifting Global Knowledge Hierarchy, Yu Zhou
Chapter 10 Pushing and Pulling: Institutional Underpinnings of Energy Transitions in India and China, Rohit Chandra
Chapter 11 Why China and India Diverged in Universal Elementary Education Policy: Implementation Measurement and the Culture of Expertise, Wenjuan Zhang
Index