Analyzing the Diversity of a Large Emerging Market: Sectoral Politics in India’s Multi-level Political Economy

Abstract Like other large emerging markets, India’s economy cannot be understood without explaining significant sectoral variations within manufacturing and services. Diverse and persistent sectoral patterns reveal the inadequacies of a dirigisme-liberalization frame that relies on a state versus market dichotomy adopted by most analyses of India’s political economy. Rather, each sector combines state and markets in diverse ways. Focusing on sectors, however, is not enough. This paper’s contribution shows how sectors are embedded in international, national, or regional contexts. This paper, and the larger collaborative project of six papers, offers a distinctive, disaggregated perspective on India’s large emerging market by deploying a sector-centered approach that embeds the study of sectors across India’s international, national, regional, and micro-levels. We advance explanations of the politics of “marketcraft” across sectors by incorporating “sectoral political networks” into our analytical framework. We show how they play a crucial role in shaping policy formation and implementation in a manner that connects the different levels of analysis and structures of political contention. The framework also yields important insights for other large and diverse economies and comparative political economy more generally.