Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Studying Local Representation: A Critical Review, Prakash Kashwan

Prakash Kashwan

What does it mean for a government or an authority to be representative? Obviously, when democratic governments rule according to what ‘people/citizens’ desire they can be said to be representative. However, citizens’ expressed desires are shaped by the environment within which they live. In those cases, desires cannot be taken to be the benchmark against which actions of representative governments can be judged. Hence, Przeworski (1999:2 citing Pitkin 1967) defines representation more broadly as ‘acting in the best interest of the public’. The use of the phrase ‘interest of the public’ begs a simple but critical question: Who constitutes as …

Democracy In The Woods: Property Rights In India’S Forests And Forestlands, Prakash Kashwan

Prakash Kashwan

No abstract provided.

Forest Governance In India: Collective Rights And Claims In The Forest Rights Act, Prakash Kashwan

Prakash Kashwan

The note is intended as an intervention within an ongoing policy debate around questions of forest governance in India. The need to keep this note short has forced the author to assume readers’ familiarity with these debates. Given this, some readers may be interested in the reports on Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 available at http://www.forestrights.nic.in/ and

http://www.forestrightsact.com/

Research support from the International Foundation for Science, Stockholm, and the Ford Foundation, New Delhi is gratefully acknowledged. The author is thankful to Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Suneel

Padale, Ajit Menon, Daniel Taghioff, and Forrest Fleischman for comments and suggestions on earlier …