Governing COVID-19 in India’s cities: state capacity, legitimation and the reproduction of public authority

Conceptualising public authority as continually performed, this paper traces the interplay between modes of legitimation, state capacity and scalar politics in governing the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite attempts to unify COVID responses nationally, governance practices differed across India’s cities: Ahmedabad (Gujarat) heightened policing, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) engaged its decentralised governance institutions, and Chennai (Tamil Nadu) sought to universalise welfare provision. National-state political dynamics shaped these differences, but performing public authority under crisis conditions also required innovation based around pre-existing legitimating ‘scripts’ and state capacity. By enacting an expanded, responsive local state, these performances can indicate possible pathways towards more inclusive disaster responses.