The ‘Anti-politics machine’ in India: Depoliticisation through local institution building for participatory watershed development
研究了印度1994年国家流域开发计划中创建非选举社区机构的理由和影响，发现去政治化话语掩盖了发展过程中的关键冲突，并导致项目空间远离亲贫进步政治。
Abstract This article investigates the rationale and implications of creating non-elected community-based bodies for India's national watershed development programme in 1994. A discourse of depoliticisation is in use to justify the creation of ‘apolitical’ watershed committees in contrast to ‘political’ panchayats, ostensibly unsuitable for participatory development for their embodiment of political contestation and vested interests. The discourse masks conflicts between key actors in India's development process and is highly malleable, acquiring pertinent meanings in specific contexts. Case-study evidence from two project villages in a south Indian district shows that the attempt to depoliticise this programme of panchayat politics fails, but sets up the ground for depoliticisation of another sort, by distancing watershed project spaces from pro-poor progressive politics.