NOTES 1. Until 2001, gram sabhas were required to meet at least twice a year. 2. In a study of Karnataka, Sivanna and Babu (2002) show that the jamabandhi program does not ensure transparency and accountability in local governance, given the poor quality of the accounting books and the failure of the audit-implementing parties to disseminate the results. 3. This evidence is consistent with other evidence in the literature. See Alsop, Krishna, and Sjoblom (2000) for a study in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh that identifies the political and socioeconomic factors behind the participation of local citizens in gram panchayat activities. 4. People from OBCs are a heterogeneous social group. Reservation for this group is divided into two subcategories: one for politically dominant groups (OBC “B”), the other for OBC castes that are not politically dominant (OBC “A”). 5. Because council members in female- and male-headed gram panchyats do not differ in their contacts according to Kruskal-Wallis test statistics, separate results for male- and female-headed GPs are not reported. 6. The very few peer-reviewed journal articles that focus on cooperatives in post–1991 Ethiopia include Staal, Delgado, and Nicholson (1997); Bernard, Taffesse, and Gabre-Madhin (2008); Francesconi and Ruben (2008); Bernard and Spielman (2009); and Spielman, Cohen, and Mogues (forthcoming).
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