Towards a comparative subnational perspective on India

Jacob, Suraj (2015) Towards a comparative subnational perspective on India. Studies in Indian Politics, 3 (2). pp. 229-246.

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Abstract

The article surveys the comparative subnational literature on India and suggests some promising paths forward. One, careful selection of sub-state regions can improve the legitimacy of inter-state comparisons and increase the validity of causal claims regarding state-specific governance and political economy. Two, there is greater scope for intra-state comparisons that control for state-specific factors and thereby identify more local, context-specific factors that drive political and other outcomes. Three, the roles and limitations of both causal and non-causal research designs need to be better understood in the subnational context. Four, for serious comparison, it is imperative to explore only a few carefully selected primary units of analysis. While this highlights the importance of the traditional comparative case study approach, the implied qualitative/quantitative dichotomy is false: methods based on inferential statistics can and should be usefully nested in a causal comparative case study framework. Five, greater emphasis on process tracing can improve insights from subnational comparisons.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Jacob, Suraj
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sub-state regions, political economy, Subnational comparisons, states, comparative method, research design, process tracing, nested analysis
Subjects:	Social sciences > Economics
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	Restricted
Related URLs:	Google Scholar
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/321
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1177/2321023015601744

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