With increasing globalization, the scope of development has shifted away from a sole focus on economic growth and capital accumulation to include the broader consideration of social, economic and cultural equality. Working within the capitalist framework that permeates most developing nations today, citizen participation that gives agency to individuals has proven to result in a redistributive and welfarist state and cultivate more robust and equitable development than accumulationist strategies of development.

In my paper I will examine the impact of lower-class mobilization and citizen participation in anti-poverty initiatives in India. More specifically, I will examine the efficacy of empowered participatory governance (EPG) or empowered deliberative democracy (EDD) in robust development and redistribution of power – both social and economic. I will go on to examine how the dynamics of power and authority intermix with techniques for the successful implementation of EDD in specific case studies such as Kerala and West Bengal.