State Capacity and Institutional Structure: A Comparative Study of Railway Development in China and India

国家能力与制度结构：中国与印度铁路发展之比较研究

Kyle Chan

陈凯欣

Abstract:

In less than a decade, China built the world’s largest high-speed rail network. India, on the other hand, has struggled to expand its railway network, which has become increasingly strained by rapidly growing social and economic demands. Why does China exhibit such a high degree of state capacity for railway development compared with India? Building on two years of in-depth fieldwork in China and India, this study examines the institutional structures that underlie state capacity in these two countries. This study finds that China’s state railway institutions are “nodal” in structure with a high concentration of decision-making power and accountability within key organizations and personnel. This results in relatively streamlined implementation for railway projects with clear lines of accountability. India’s state railway institutions, by contrast, are “diffuse” in structure with overlapping and conflicting lines of authority, resulting in decision-making bottlenecks and a diffusion of responsibility. These findings have implications for understanding the relationship between state capacity and institutional structure across the developing world.

Bio:

Kyle Chan is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago and his master’s degree in political sociology from the London School of Economics.