Constrained Expertise in India and China

Knowledge and Power in Policymaking

Manjari Mahajan, Mark Frazier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040785997
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Science & Technology Public Policy

Constrained Expertise in India and China explores what kinds of knowledge and knowledge purveyors get mobilized and privileged, and what gets sidelined in policymaking in India and China. Through its detailed empirical studies in both countries, the volume illuminates a trend of increasing concentration of political authority which has frequently demanded that experts be aligned with the central government's agenda. Spaces are shrinking for divergent and oppositional viewpoints, whether these come from the bureaucracy, academia, think tanks, or NGOs. The declining autonomy of experts has been exacerbated by institutional structures, since knowledge purveyors that directly contribute to policymaking typically have been embedded within bureaucracies or otherwise dependent on the state rather than occupying independent bases. Both countries face the challenge of how to build and sustain ecosystems of heterogeneous experts that are not simply echo chambers of executive authority. The edited collection represents a pathbreaking contribution to the study of expertise and governance in India and China.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• Part I Mobilizing Expertise: Institutional Structures and Hierarchies Within States
• Part II Logics of Exclusion—and Occasional Inclusion: Policymaking and Knowledge from Local Communities and Social Movements
• Part III Comparisons and Global Flows
• Index