The Anatomy of Failure : An Ethnography of a Randomized Trial to Deepen Democracy in Rural India

Ananthpur, Kripa ; Malik, Kabir ; Rao, Vijayendra

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    AUDITS;    BAD PEOPLE;    BANKS;    BENEFICIARIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6958
RP-ID  :  WPS6958

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Programs that induce citizenparticipation to improve the quality of government at thelocal level are the subjects of large amounts of funding andintense debate. This paper combines a randomized controltrial of a citizenship training and facilitation program inrural India, with an in-depth, four-year ethnography of theintervention to understand the underlying mechanisms ofchange. The quantitative data show no impact from theintervention. Household and village survey data from 100treatment and 100 control villages show considerableimprovement across a wide variety of governance andparticipation indicators over time, but the differences inthe changes between treatment and control villages are notstatistically significant. The detailed qualitative datafrom a 10 percent subsample allow us to unpack the reasonswhy the intervention "failed," highlighting therole of variations in the quality of facilitation, lack oftop-down support, and difficulties with confronting thestubborn challenge of persistent inequality. However, thequalitative investigation also uncovered subtle treatmenteffects that are difficult to observe in structured surveys.The paper thus demonstrates that a concerted effort to use"thick description" to uncover the process ofchange using careful and detailed qualitative work can addvalue to standard impact evaluations.