A Study of the Triadic Relationship among Degree of Decentralisation Inequality and Social Capital in Decentralised Democracies in Kerala

Abstract

Decentralization of the democratic system is one of the major highlights of the Indian newline democracy. The study focuses on three aspects-Decentralisation, Inequality and Social newline Capital-which are complimentary in nature and is directly or indirectly related to each other. newline Hence the study aims to understand the nature and dynamics of Degree of Decentralisation, newline nature and extent of inequalities at gramapanchayath level and nature and content of social newline capital in a decentralised democratic system. The study at a larger level tries to understand newline the triadic relationship between degree of decentralisation, inequality and social capital in a newline decentralised democratic system. The study adopts a multiple case study design which allows newline a detailed description of individual cases and also a cross case comparisons which explains the newline relationship between the variables. The study was carried out in Anchuthengu, Mutholy, newline Kumbalangi, Nadapuram and Thirunelli gramapanchayaths in Kerala selected on the criteria newline of geographic and climatic conditions and performance of gramapanchayaths. While, newline descriptive analysis captures the detailed description of the individual gramapanchayaths, newline multivariate analysis facilitates the comparisons and sketches out the relationship among the newline concepts under investigation. The highlight of the analysis is the plethora of statistical newline methods adopted in analysis of the variables especially each of the core concepts. The degree newline of decentralisation is measured in terms of technical efficiency scores obtained through the newline frontier stochastic regression and technical efficiency scores for each of the variables. newline Inequality is captured through the gini scores of the variables of outcome level inequality. newline Principal component analysis captures the factors of social capital and the factor scores are newline used for the predictive and relational analysis to establish the relationship. The study compares newline the gramapanchayaths on the major variables under investigation and gives comparative newline picture of the panchayaths, where Kumbalangi and Mutholy seems to have a sustainable and newline stable performance across the all the variables and Anchuthengu gramapanchayath seems to newline lag behind the others in most of the points of comparisons. The social capital factors for each newline of the components of social capital are derived through principal component analysis and newline major factors for each of the component is formulated. The linear and ordinal regression newline models explores the relationship among the concepts under study and it clearly emerges that newline Social Capital and Degree of Decentralisation has a positive relation and Degree of newline Decentralization and Levels of Inequality are negatively related. The study also highlights the newline data issues in objectively studying decentralisation and also the question of developmental newline data at a gramapanchayath level. newline