Demanding Development
The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums
India’s urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their access to basic public goods and services—paved roads, piped water, trash removal, sewers, and streetlights. Such inter-settlement disparities exist despite sharing broader vulnerabilities associated with informality in housing and employment, entrenched forms of patronage politics, and government institutions that are often dismissive to the poor. Why are some vulnerable communities able to secure development from the state while others fail? Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in the north Indian cities of Bhopal and Jaipur, Demanding Development (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2020) accounts for the variable success of India’s slum residents in claiming public services. My theory centers on the political organization of slums and the informal slum leaders who spearhead resident efforts to petition the state for public services—in particular, those slum leaders who are party workers. I find striking variation in the extent to which networks of party workers have spread across slum settlements. Demanding Development shows how this variation in the density and partisan distribution of party workers across settlements has powerful consequences for the ability of residents to politically mobilize to improve local conditions.
"Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic and survey data, Auerbach paints a picture of Indian slums that sets a new standard for depth and rigor. He lays waste to the widespread view of slums as passive communities manipulated by politicians. In a magisterial portrait of how slum politics actually work, Auerbach shows us how slum dwellers mobilize to make claims, making the powerful case that for all their diversity and desperation, slums can be arenas of solidarity and political organization. Demanding Development will fundamentally change the debate on the politics of the urban poor." -Patrick Heller, Brown University
"Millions of people across the world live in urban slums. In this important book, Auerbach asks why some slum communities feature better living conditions than others. Based on rigorous, multi-method research and deep contextual knowledge, he traces how party workers broker access to public services and, against conventional wisdom, shows that more diverse communities have superior public goods provision precisely because they feature multiple, competitive party worker networks." -Melani Cammett, Harvard University
"With this book, Auerbach emerges as a leader among scholars who look at the urban poor from the inside out. His painstaking ethnographic work and impressive original statistics persuade us that without looking at slums' internal politics, little can be predicted about service levels and other outcomes. Laying bare these patterns of local politics, and explaining how they matter, will remain Auerbach's abiding contributions to the study of the poor in cities." -Anirudh Krishna, Duke University
"Auerbach's book takes us to the forefront of contemporary urbanization, examining how slum dwellers in India secure basic services and infrastructure...This stellar example of multi-method scholarship will help cement the 'urban turn' in comparative politics." -Alison Post, University of California, Berkeley
Reviews of Demanding Development are published in Democratization, Studies in Indian Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Asian Studies, Urban Affairs Review, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Urbanisation, The Book Review Literary Trust, Urban Studies, The Hindu, LSE Review of Books, Environment and Urbanization, Pacific Affairs, Journal of Development Studies, Environment and Urbanization Asia, and Economic and Political Weekly.