- 5 August | Toppers Wrote 1000 Answers Between Prelims & Mains! | Click Here to Watch →
- 5 August | Are you the Average of the 5 People Around You by Mr. Ayush Sinha | Click Here to Watch →
- 5 August | First UPSC Mains Don't Chase AIR 1 by Mr Ayush Sinha | Click Here to Watch →
Thinker of the Day | Robert D. Putnam
Work – Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993)
Views
- Putnam defined social capital through networks, norms and trust that facilitate collective action. Strong social capital improves cooperation between citizens and institutions.
His Italian regional study found that regions with stronger civic engagement, associational life and horizontal networks tended to have more effective institutions.
The quality of governance depends not only on formal institutions but also on the civic culture surrounding them.
Administrative effectiveness is influenced by social trust and citizen participation, not merely organisational structures.
Putnam shifts the explanation of administrative performance from institutions alone to the social capital, trust and civic networks that enable institutions to function effectively.
Keyword of the Day | Deconcentration | Dennis Rondinelli
Deconcentration means transferring administrative work and decision making from the central headquarters to field offices of the government without giving those offices full political or legal autonomy.
for e.g. Union and State governments operate through district-level field machinery, allowing policies such as disaster relief, welfare and revenue administration to be implemented closer to citizens without transferring sovereignty to the district.
Deconcentration brings administration closer to citizens, but unlike devolution it does not fundamentally alter the locus of political authority.
Pub Ad PYQ Vault | Day 23 | PYQ (2014)
Critically examine the statement: ‘Thana’ (police station) as the last bastion of the waning British administrative legacy in India.
