Puzzle of India's Governance

• Introduction: A Comparative Theory of Governance. Measuring Governance: A Design for Empirical Enquiry. The Institutional Arrangement of Governance: Structure and Formation of the State in India. The Regional Context of Governance: Six Analytic Narratives. Policing and Governance: Culture and Context in the Organisation of Order. The Agency of Public Institutions: Leaders, Administrators and Governance. Modern State and Pre-Modern Identities: Governing Culture in Changing Societies. Negotiating Governance in Changing Societies: Beyond the Indian Model. Bibliography of Texts Cited. Appendix 1: Elite Questionnaire with Marginals

'Mitra's work deserves attention for its use of a range of methodological approaches that substantiate the argument that instead of having a segmented polity, a federalizing India provides an ideal environment for undertaking a comparative analysis based on one nation, many unit's sampling frame provided that the units are autonomous and homogeneous for the purpose of the study and that the cases are selected in a manner that minimises bias'. - Seminar'The present work should enable the comparativists to become familiar with sophisticated analytical and statistical research tools, as also encourage the sceptics to rethink state politics from a governance perspective.' - Seminar