ABSTRACT
Chapter 6, titled ‘Designing for localism and multi-level governance’, considers the design of political institutions and systems. Political institutions can emerge naturally, or they can be designed to achieve specific purposes. There is generally more scope for political design in circumstances which are volatile or indeterminate, where the ‘realist constraints’ which make reform difficult are less in evidence. Political design may be carried out at different levels: at that of individual institutions; at that of a whole polity; or at that of a sub-continental political system. The chapter sets out seven design principles for effective political governance at the sub-continental scale. They are (1) rootedness, (2) environmental awareness, (3) human wellbeing, (4) citizenship (5) mutuality and territorial cohesion, (6) sustainability and resilience, and (7) learning and public value. Over the past 70 years, many states have been moving towards a more decentralized pattern of territorial governance, but examples of states which have been designed with micro-level governance in mind are still rare. The most notable example is India, whose major constitutional reforms of 1993 established a new tier of democratic governance at the village and urban-ward level. These reforms were inspired by the visionary localism of Mahatma Gandhi.
