Claiming the State

Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision but often struggle to access essential services in health education and social security.  This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world’s largest democracy make claims on the state asking whether how and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India kruks-wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste neighborhood or village - builds citizens’ political knowledge expectations and linkages to the state and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoire of claim-making.