The Dravidian model : interpreting the political economy of Tamil Nadu Kalaiyarasan A.

"Inter-regional variations in economic and social outcomes across India, one of the fastest growing economies, continue to pose conceptual and policy challenges. States that do well on the growth front lag in human development, while human development in a few other states has not been accompanied by sustained growth in productive sectors. Tamil Nadu in southern India bucks this trend, and hence is seen as a model to be emulated. The state has managed to combine relatively high levels of growth and sustained productive capacities along with human development. Drawing upon fresh data, literature, policy documents and primary fieldwork, this book seeks to explain the social and economic development of Tamil Nadu in terms of populist mobilization rooted in a regional subaltern identity. Dominant policy narratives on inclusive growth assume a sequential logic whereby returns to growth are used to invest in socially inclusive policies. By focusing more on redistribution of access to opportunities in the modern economy than on land, the state has sustained a relatively more inclusive and dynamic growth process. Democratization of economic opportunities has made such broad-based growth possible even as interventions in social sectors reinforce the former. It thus also speaks to the nascent literature on political economy of subnational development trajectories in the global South. Importantly, it contributes to the growing literature on how regional politics and political regimes contribute to the shaping of global development trajectories"-- Provided by publisher