Over the last two decades development policy has touted civic participation as a magic bullet for solving problems at the local level from improving livelihoods, to selecting beneficiaries for public programs, providing housing after earthquakes and floods, or improving village infrastructure....

Influenced by Amartya Sen, over the last decade, The World Bank has allocated nearly US$80 billion to local participatory development projects targeting poverty, improved public service delivery, and strengthened social cohesion and government accountability. But the success of these programs is...

What factors determine the nature of political opportunism in local government in South India? To answer this question, we study two types of policy decisions that have been delegated to local politicians—beneficiary selection for transfer programs and the allocation of within-village public...

Deliberation is the process by which a group of people, each with equal voice, can - via a process of discussion and debate - reach an agreement. This book attempts to do two things. First, it rethinks the role of deliberation in development and shows that it has potential well beyond a narrow...

The Policy Research Report Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? brings analytical rigor to a field that has been the subject of intense debate and advocacy, and billions of dollars in development aid. It briefly reviews the history of participatory development and argues that its two...