The Self-Deceiving State
dc.contributor.author | Chambers, Robert | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2023-03-28T13:17:20Z | |
dc.date.available | 2023-03-28T13:17:20Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-03-31 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Chambers, R. (2023) 'The Self-Deceiving State', IDS Bulletin 54.1A, DOI: 10.19088/1968-2023.120 | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 1759-5436 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/17920 | |
dc.description.abstract | While change accelerates in rural conditions in the South, professionalism and bureaucracy are buffered against change. In their top‐down mode they produce and promote standard programmes, packages, and technologies. Rural development programmes in India for agriculture, canal irrigation, watershed development, and poverty alleviation illustrate how there is a mismatch between such standardisation and diverse needs and conditions. This mismatch is underperceived, and status at the cores is sustained, by misleading positive feedback from the peripheries. Falsely favourable impressions and information have five sources: misreporting; selected perception; misleading methods; diplomacy and prudence; and defences against dissonance. Error and myth among the development professions further aggravate the misfit between belief and reality. The costs of the resulting psychosis of the state are colossal. Therapy can be sought through policies and practices which empower poor people: reversals for local diversity; clarifying and communicating people’s rights; and personal choices by the powerful. | en |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.publisher | Institute of Development Studies | en |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | IDS Bulletin;54.1A | |
dc.rights | This IDS Bulletin Archive Collection is an Open Access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited and any modifications or adaptations are indicated. | en |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en |
dc.subject | Politics and Power | en |
dc.subject | Poverty | en |
dc.subject | Rural Development | en |
dc.title | The Self-Deceiving State | en |
dc.type | Article | en |
dc.rights.holder | Institute of Development Studies | en |
dc.identifier.team | Participation Power and Social Change | en |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.19088/1968-2023.120 | |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2023-03-31 | |
rioxxterms.funder | Default funder | en |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en |
rioxxterms.versionofrecord | 10.19088/1968-2023.120 | en |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This IDS Bulletin Archive Collection is an Open Access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited and any modifications or adaptations are indicated.