Chapter 7 investigates how bureaucratic norms change, analyzing recent institutional reforms in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. I first examine Mahila Samakhya in UP, a women’s empowerment program initiated by the central government. Challenging legalistic bureaucratic norms, Mahila Samakhya fostered a subculture of deliberation that inspired frontline worker commitment to institutional activism. Frontline workers countered village caste and patriarchal structures to mobilize Dalit women's associations, a process rife with social conflict. Deliberation with target households supported the integration of disadvantaged girls into school. In Bihar, by contrast, committed state leadership worked to strengthen law and order, encouraging a broad shift toward legalism. Bureaucratic commitment to rules supported the growth of school enrollment and infrastructure provision. However, state initiatives to improve education quality through innovative teaching practices faltered, as they conflicted with administrative rule-following. The findings suggest the difficulties of securing frontline worker commitment to quality reforms on the back of legalistic bureaucracy.

Chapter 1 introduces the central puzzle of implementing primary education in northern India, a least likely setting for programmatic service delivery. Despite having the same formal institutions and national policy framework for primary education, implementation varies remarkably across northern Indian states. After reviewing existing explanations, the chapter outlines the main argument, anchored around variation in informal bureaucratic norms, and foreshadows the theoretical contributions to comparative politics and development. It then presents the research design and methods, based on multilevel comparisons in four Indian states (Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar). Using multiple field research methods, I trace the implementation process from state capitals down to the village primary schools, drawing on two and a half years of field research: participant observation inside bureaucracies; village ethnography; and 853 interviews and 103 focus group discussions. I conclude with an overview of the book’s remaining chapters.

Chapter 4 embarks on Part II of the book, the first of four empirical chapters analyzing implementation in northern India. It examines primary education in Uttar Pradesh (UP), a state that exemplifies the dynamic of legalistic bureaucracy theorized in Chapter 2. Rural UP is among the least likely setting. First, I trace the historical origins and persistence of legalistic bureaucracy in UP from the colonial era onward, but focusing on the recent period of lower caste mobilization and multiparty competition. Next, I present evidence from multilevel comparative fieldwork demonstrating how legalistic bureaucracy drives implementation over a range of administrative tasks, including school infrastructure and enrollments and provision of the Midday Meal program. I then bring the analysis down to the village-level. Taking a citizen-centric view of the state, I trace the evolution of village collective action around primary schooling over time, demonstrating how bureaucratic norms interact with citizen oversight.

Chapter 9 concludes the book by outlining its contributions to scholarship in comparative politics, development and public administration. The theoretical framework centered on bureaucratic norms brings institutionalist perspectives on the state and social policy together with insights on street-level bureaucracy and local collective action. The conceptual interweaving of meso-level state institutions with the micro-politics of frontline service delivery gives rise to a new understanding of bureaucracy and its relationship to human development. The chapter also explores the study's policy implications for the reform of bureaucracy, public services and primary education in developing countries.

Chapter 3 sets the stage for the book's study of implementation. It explores the policy and institutional terrain of primary education in India, examining the political currents beneath India's sluggish expansion of primary education policy. It also presents the legal and administrative architecture for policy implementation. Based on interviews and archival materials, I find that the adoption of universal primary education policies was driven by elite politics inside the state. Committed state officials gradually expanded their authority, using administrative levers to institutionally layer reforms on top of the existing education system. As the Indian economy liberalized in the 1990s, reformers drew on World Bank fiscal and technical assistance to scale up reforms across the country. The argument builds on theories of gradual institutional change, highlighting the agency of committed state elite. The findings also suggest the limitations of institutional layering in India's education system, which failed to address weak administrative capacity and problems of local accountability.

Chapter 6 studies primary education in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. It offers a matched-pair comparison with the previous chapter's study of Himachal Pradesh (HP). Despite similar geography, agrarian economies and sociocultural norms, Uttarakhand's school system performs far worse. I trace the underperformance to the persistence of legalistic bureaucratic norms. Drawing on historical and ethnographic materials, I explore the political process behind Uttarakhand’s political separation from UP in 2000, a critical juncture that offered a window for state elites to reshape bureaucratic norms. Field-based evidence from interviews with state and societal actors showcases how legalism persists inside the state bureaucracy. Next, I analyze how legalism influences the state's management of teachers and monitoring of education services. I find that village collective action gets thwarted due to administrative burdens posed by local agencies, which induces households to exit and seek private substitutes. The findings suggest that legalistic bureaucracy weakens societal coproduction of public services over time, even in settings of high social capital.

Chapter 2 presents the book’s theory connecting differences in bureaucratic norms to variation in the implementation of primary schooling. I first define implementation and operationalize it for the primary education domain. I then present comparative education indicators, showcasing differences in performance across four Indian states. Next, I develop a theory anchored around the ideal types of legalistic and deliberative bureaucracy. I argue that deliberative bureaucracies, which promote flexibility and problem-solving, are more effective since they can adapt policies to local needs and activate participation from marginalized communities. By contrast, legalistic states, which adhere strictly to rules and procedures, implement policies unevenly and tend to benefit privileged groups in society, weakening the engagement of poor communities. I elucidate two mechanisms: collective understanding and behavior of state officials, and societal feedback, which together yield varied mentation patterns and outcomes. I explore the political origins behind the differences in bureaucratic norms. I scope conditions of my theory and contrast it with alternative political explanations for the implementation of public services.