Doctoral Research : Works in Progress

State-Building in Developing Countries: Challenges of Meritocratic Recrutiment

Abstract: Recruiting an autonomous civil service remains a challenge in many developing countries. The peculiarity of the Indian state is its small size. It employs 18 million people, which is ~2% of the population. India is characterized by a paradox in recruiting its civil service: Despite having the largest workforce in the world, an extremely high willingness to supply labour for public sector jobs, and credible intent for State recruitment, the Indian state is not adequately staffed — with vacancies persisting across different levels of government. Almost 25-45% of the federal and state government positions are vacant despite having budgetary, legislative and political sanctions.

Labor supply for public sector jobs in India is highly inelastic. In 2022, 3 million candidates competed for 3,500 central government posts while 12 million vied for 60,000 state positions—yielding selectivity rates less than 0.5%. Aspirants invest substantially in exam preparation despite these odds. 

The puzzle is even striking in view of dominant scholarship in political science establishing India as a patronage state. But, the question beckons: if political patronage dominates recruitment, what stops politicians from appointing cronies to the sanctioned posts in government? Why are posts empty?

Using elite interviews with officials at State Public Service Commissions across 7 states in India, this paper argues that it is the meritocratic recruitment processes themselves that drive a patronage state. Process tracing along with novel micro-level descriptive statistics from state governments show that India’s recruitment processes are, if anything, unduly meritocratic, in the sense of being almost exclusively exam based. But instead of necessarily strengthening the bureaucracy, these processes have contributed to weakening it by leaving a large number of vacancies.

The paper further shows a deliberate systematic shift by the state to move from permanent to contractual employees. This keeps the permanent posts vacant yet maintains a steady workforce in government. Politicians can exercise greater patronage and push for ‘regularization’ of their cronies to permanent positions. Given that recruiting is uncertain and expensive, politicians and bureaucrats justify the shift to contractual recruitment due to fiscal constraints, enabling long-term liabilities and enhancing operational performance.

Pre-Doctoral Research

Book Chapters

2018: Vivek Dehejia and Prakhar Misra. India and the Rating Agencies in Bibek Debroy, Anirban Ganguly and Kishore Desai (eds.), Making of New India, Wisdom Tree.

2016: Prakhar Misra. Liberalism in India: The Lucifer Effect, in Ronald Meinardus (eds.), What does it Mean to be a Liberal in India. Academic Foundation.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications

2021: Niranjan Rajadhyaksha and Prakhar Misra. The Practice of Flexible Inflation Targeting in India–A Preliminary Assessment. Indian Public Policy Review, Vol. 2, No. 3

2021: Sharmadha Srinivasan and Prakhar Misra. Grants from Centre and States’ Fiscal Marksmanship. Indian Public Policy Review, Vol. 2, No. 1

2018: Prakhar Misra. Book Review: Phishing for Phools. St. Antony’s International Review, Vol. 13, No. 2