Neoliberal Politics: A Study of Restructuring of the Indian State
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Date
2018
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Publisher
Central University of Punjab
Abstract
Neoliberal Politics refers to 'economic rationalism', which is based on the efficiency
of market forces and characterised it by minimal government intervention. It
emerged in contrast to the welfare state model, in which the state takes
responsibility for protection and socio-economic well-being of its citizens. On the
other side, the neoliberal politics claims that the well-being of human can be
forwarded by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills through
private property rights, free market and free trade within the institutional
framework. In post-independence era, Indian founding fathers constitute the
developmental state structure for the welfare of the citizens. With the passage of
time welfare state's institutional inefficiencies, government's unfinished distributive
programmes, and slow economic progress induced the government towards
neoliberal politics. Hence, in the wake of neoliberal politics in the 1980s, the Indian
government has begun to transform the developmental path. Hereafter, the
government has started to the institutional restructuring of the state and
constituted new institutions for private entrepreneur lead development. As a result,
the developmental state system has been restructured in order to free market
system. With this background, the study has made an attempt to relook democratic
socialist character of the Indian state and its journey from close to open market
(1950 to 2014). After analysing the associated impacts on the democratic process
and social welfare imperatives, the study concludes that the neoliberal politics has
restructured the state institutions from the commanding control of the market
system to the regulation based market system.
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Keywords
Neoliberalism, Welfare State, India, Institutional Restructuring, Democratic Process
Citation
Singh, Hushiar (2018) Neoliberal Politics: A Study of Restructuring of the Indian State