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Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India
... In explaining why ethnicity is so often central to politics, scholars have observed that ethnic identities tend to be more visible than nonethnic identities (Chandra 2004(Chandra , 2012Fearon 1999a;Hale 2004;Horowitz 1985). 2 By this, they mean that attributes associated with particular ethnic groups-for example, physical traits, modes of dress, language, accent, or name-are readily and easily observed by others. Because these visible attributes, and the ethnic identities that they signal, are correlated with other, less visible attributes, they can serve as useful tools for organizing political and social behavior (Hale 2004). ...
... Because these visible attributes, and the ethnic identities that they signal, are correlated with other, less visible attributes, they can serve as useful tools for organizing political and social behavior (Hale 2004). For example, Chandra (2004) argues that ethnicity provides a useful cue for the coordination and enforce-ment of patronage systems in low-information, weakly institutionalized political systems precisely because it is easily observed. In this instrumental framework, ethnicity's visibility helps to coordinate whom a citizen should support politically and which constituents a politician should favor materially (Carlson 2015;Chandra 2004Chandra , 2012Conroy-Krutz 2013;Ferree 2006;Posner 2005). ...
... For example, Chandra (2004) argues that ethnicity provides a useful cue for the coordination and enforce-ment of patronage systems in low-information, weakly institutionalized political systems precisely because it is easily observed. In this instrumental framework, ethnicity's visibility helps to coordinate whom a citizen should support politically and which constituents a politician should favor materially (Carlson 2015;Chandra 2004Chandra , 2012Conroy-Krutz 2013;Ferree 2006;Posner 2005). Such visibility is also important for exclusion, as patronage works best when networks can easily exclude nonmembers (Fearon 1999b). ...
The political utility of ethnicity is typically attributed to the ease with which it can be observed. However, ethnic visibility is not universal, and I argue that its variation has political implications; namely that more visible group members support ethnic parties at higher rates because they have the most to gain (or lose) from ethnopolitical competition. Using original data from Malawi, I find that individual‐level ethnic visibility is indeed strongly associated with ethnic party support. I provide further evidence that visibility induces party support instrumentally by shaping expectations about others’ ability to correctly infer ethnic belonging. I also show that the theory generalizes to the group level, with more visible ethnic groups across Africa being more likely to vote ethnically. These results qualify a central assumption in instrumental theories of ethnic politics—that ethnic identities are always visible—and help explain variation in the success of ethnic political mobilization.
... While the political appeal of welfare benefits is obvious, what is less clear is whether and how incumbent political parties realize electoral gains from legislating or implementing such welfare policies. The vast literature on clientelism argues that the dominant channel of welfare delivery is through intermediaries who dispense welfare benefits in the hope of securing votes in exchange (Chandra, 2004;Corstange, 2018;Hicken, 2011). However, recent scholarship suggests that the design and implementation of welfare schemes are often 'programmatic' and 'post-clientelistic', where there is no direct chain of linkage between welfare delivery and vote (Das & Maiorano, 2019;Elliott, 2011;Wyatt, 2013). ...
... Elected public officials also actively provide services to their constituents through nonpartisan 'constituency service' (Bussell, 2019). It is increasingly believed that any form of quid-pro-quo linkages for welfare delivery, as emphasized in the literature on 'clientelism' (Casas, 2020;Chandra, 2004;Hicken, 2011), may be difficult to sustain for political parties or leaders (Auerbach et al., 2021). In the absence of direct linkage with votes, it is puzzling to see political parties investing significant political capital in enacting welfare schemes and facilitating the delivery of benefits. ...
... We also accounted for determinants of voting behaviour other than party characteristics. Our dataset allowed for a relative comparison of the most important criteria for vote choice -(i) the candidate's party, (ii) the candidate's ability to deliver material benefits, in line with the clientelism hypothesis (Chandra, 2004;Corstange, 2018), (iii) the candidate's social group, i.e., caste, jati or religion as indicated by the adage that in India voters vote their caste when casting their vote (Lublin, 2017;Singh, 2015), and (iv) the national leader of the party to account for the so-called 'Modi wave' (Chhibber & Verma, 2014). We also attempt to account for vote-buying behaviour by controlling for receipt of any gift or cash (Gans-Morse et al., 2014). ...
The growing popularity of welfare schemes across several developing countries is crucially predicated on whether incumbent governments can derive consequent electoral benefits. A federal structure like India’s, characterized by overlapping policy design and implementation responsibilities, provides opportunities for diffused credit attribution. Therefore, the question of electoral returns depends on the ability of voters to assign credit for welfare benefits to different levels of government. We investigate voter attribution of credit for welfare policies and their electoral consequences using data from a large sample survey from the 2014 parliamentary elections in India. Our results indicate that welfare delivery and credit attribution mattered to the electorate and was one of the few factors that worked in favour of the incumbent United Progressive Alliance, but it was not decisive enough to yield an overall electoral victory. There are strong political imperatives for the roll-out and expansion of welfare schemes, as well as contestations around credit claims. Our analysis provides empirical support for intense party competition over credit for welfare benefits in a federal structure—which has been widely observed and commented upon in the media but has not been econometrically tested for its electoral significance. We find that welfare schemes are an essential dimension of performance evaluation by the electorate, a problem understudied in the extant literature on ‘performance voting’ and undertheorized in the literature on ‘distributive politics’ and ‘welfare provisions’, particularly in a federal structure.
... More recently, Lacina (2015) has extended this perspective to consider within-periphery rivalries, arguing that the likelihood of violent secessionist conflict depends not only on the interaction between the state center and mobilizing peripheral groups but also on the former's relationship with other ethnic groups in the same territory, thus accounting more fully for the country's vast ethnic diversity at the subnational level. Other arguments follow a more individualist and instrumentalist logic, emphasizing ethnic clientelism, rather than collective ethno-regional identities, to explain ethnic mobilization in India (for example , Chandra 2004;Ziegfeld 2016). Moreover, many studies also examine how such clientelist politics usher in ethnic violence in the form of ethnic riots (for example, Bulutgil and Prasad 2023;Varshney 2001;Wilkinson 2004), again similar to the "Africanist" literature. ...
... Finally, a third division in existing scholarship on ethnic mobilization concerns the strategy of mobilization. Partly due to the accessibility of information, many studies of ethnic mobilization have focused on electoral politics and, thus, ethnic parties (Birnir 2007;Chandra 2004;Elischer 2013;Rice and Van Cott 2006;Sorens 2005). Ethnic mobilization outside the electoral arena has been the focus of a separate literature. ...
This article reviews the literature on nationalism and ethnic mobilization. I first discuss the different strands of research in the field, highlighting three key sources of division that characterize existing literature: geography, ethnic cleavage type, and strategy of mobilization. Arguing that the lack of dialogue between different niches of research can undermine the accumulation of general knowledge, I propose an integrated perspective on nationalism and ethnic mobilization that serves to assimilate findings from these separate niches. I conclude by discussing how such an integrated perspective can enhance our knowledge of the causes, dynamics, and consequences of ethnic mobilization.
... EGOs provide information and political cues to members by imparting knowledge about electoral processes and endorsing specific political organizations and candidates. Some scholars argue that in contexts of scarce information, social identities become salient and help determine political preferences (Chandra, 2004). Other set of works focuses on how endorsements from co-ethnics or EGOs help determine political choices (Boudreau et al., 2019). ...
... Notably, people involved in ethnic organizations have additional information about the quality of the candidates and representatives that could make them prefer to vote in the territorial district. Similarly, previous studies argue that under a low-information context, voters will tend to vote more often for candidates of their same ethnic identity (Chandra, 2004). Table 2 shows the results of a series of correlations between voting in the territorial district and measures of trust in the ethnic district for EGO members. ...
Numerous countries around the globe have undertaken efforts aimed at enhancing political representation. One of these efforts has taken the institutional form of reserved seats or ethnic districts where individuals must choose where to deposit their votes. In this paper, we ask if group consciousness and organizational membership affect the choice to vote on these types of districts. Using a mixed-methods approach by combining semi-structured interviews with elites and a subgroup analysis of a conjoint experiment in a sample of Afro-Colombians, we find evidence that group consciousness affects the preferences for ethnic districts over territorial ones. Contrary to initial expectations, we observe that membership in ethnic organizations does not significantly alter preferences for ethnic districts among surveyed individuals. These findings indicate that individuals with high levels of group consciousness tend to choose to participate more in mechanisms and institutions that can enhance the group’s political representation.
... Nicaragua as ethnic groups even though each of these groups can be divided into different ethnic categories since they do not have a shared culture by the majority of their members. Chandra (2004) designates ethnic groups based on region without considering whether these groups meet her definition of ethnic groups as ascriptive groups. Similarly, the Minorities of Risk project (2009) takes religion as the basis for ethnic categorization in some countries (e.g., Shi'is in Iraq and Hindus in Pakistan), whereas the designation criterion is one's race in others (e.g., Black Karibs in Honduras and Blacks in Colombia). ...
... Similarly, following the same approach, Epstein et al. (2006a) Besides, ethnic politics is often characterized by a two-level game, as the interaction between the elites and the masses (Horowitz 1985;Lijphart 1968). Ethnic elites regularly engage in the politics of ethnic outbidding for support (Chandra 2004;, and the group members throw their support behind the ethnic leaders in exchange for preferential treatment. Nevertheless, individuals can have and self-identify with multiple ethnic segments at the time. ...
What factors contribute to the establishment of ethnically inclusive governments and what ethnic groups enjoy from such inclusion? Although its benevolent effects have been under scrutiny in the voluminous literature on democratization on civil wars, how to arrive at an ethnically inclusive polity has only received scarce attention. This thesis focuses on the dynamics of interethnic cooperation. More precisely, it explores the factors that lead to more ethnically inclusive governments (i.e., power-sharing coalitions) in divided societies and factors that affect the stability of such governments. Overall, the study argues that elite behavior is key to understanding the dynamics of interethnic cooperation and that such behavior is conditioned by the particular ethno-political context in which the elites operate. Once ethno-political factors are entered into the equation, unlike what classical studies of power sharing suggest, formal political institutions should have little or no influence on the formation of ethnically more inclusive governments. The ethno-political factors particularly relate to “ethno-demographic distribution of the population” and “the record of interethnic relations” in each polity. At the level of its actors, the study maintains that the characteristics of ethnic groups have a decisive effect on the likelihood of their inclusion at the political center. In particular, these factors concern the so-called overlapping or reinforcing identity cleavages between ethnic groups and their relative mobilizational capacity.
To test the claims, this study employs a quantitative analysis involving over 100 countries for the years between 1946 and 2017. The analyses situate at both the country- and group-level to reveal a more complete picture of ethnic inclusion and the functioning of the “structural” determinants as well as the operation of its actual “actors” (i.e., ethnic elites). The results confirm the expectations as well as the plausibility of the hypotheses on the effects of the ethno-political factors with respect to the making and maintaining of ethnic inclusion. Overall, the empirical analyses suggest that varying ethno-political contexts of countries and actor characteristics can better explain the variation in ethnic inclusion and the stability of ethnic regimes in that the same ethnic groups remain in power. More precisely, the empirical analyses reveal three main findings. First, at the country-level, the level of ethnic inclusion is lower in ethnically more divided countries as well as in the context of ongoing ethnic violence. In contrast, the previous experiences of inter-ethnic cooperation foster the level of ethnic inclusion. Second, at the group-level, multiple identity cleavages between the ruling group and a given ethnic group decrease its likelihood of being included in the state apparatus, whereas more populous ethnic groups are more likely to make it into the governing circle. Third, and finally, so-called survival analysis shows that the higher levels of ethnic inclusion promote the stability of the ethnic composition of governments. In contrast, the underrepresentation of a coalition partner decreases the stability of such regimes. The study concludes by discussing the theoretical and implications of these results and delivers suggestions for future research.
... The literature on democracies in the developing world paints a picture of rampant vote buying and ethnic voting (Bratton, 2008;Conroy-Krutz, 2013;Nugent, 2007;Posner, 2005;Mares & Young, 2016). Voters are expected to prefer direct, tangible benefits in elections over campaign promises of public goods or national policy (Keefer & Vlaicu, 2017;Khemani, 2015) and to distrust candidates outside their own identity groups to deliver such goods (Stokes, 2007;Kitschelt, 2000;Chandra 2007;Jensen & Justesen, 2014). Yet, recent studies draw such assumptions into question. ...
... One focus group participant from a 3 Of course, there are other reasons to vote for coethnics as well. Individuals may feel that they have shared interests with coethnics, or that their status is reflected in the status of their ethnic group (Chandra, 2007 Cashgate corruption scandal unfolded, leaving organizations which normally implement voter education without the financial means to carry out such programs (Mbowela and Mwalubunju, 2015: 127). 7 According to the Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN) Observer report of the 2014 elections: ''In the campaign rallies before the 2014 elections it was observed that most of the main parties provided audiences with material hand-outs such as campaign t-shirts, caps and sometimes financial incentives to attend the events. ...
The literature on democracies in the developing world paints a picture of rampant vote buying. A growing research field has shed light on how politicians decide whom to target, how individuals view vote buying, and the consequences of such practices. Yet, most research compares support for candidates offering handouts to those who do not. It fails to explore how offering handouts compares to other campaign strategies – promising future targeted goods or community goods, explicitly eschewing vote buying campaign tactics, or garnering support based on ethnic or local social ties. In this study, we employ a conjoint experiment fielded in Malawi (n = 1,166) to examine the relative power of vote buying versus other campaign tactics. Our experimental results reveal that respondents view candidates who promise community service provision or criticize vote buying more positively than those who offer handouts. We also find that the magnitude of the effects for community service provision and anti-vote buying campaigns are greater than that of platforms associated with coethnicity and local social ties. These findings are both substantively and theoretically important. Policymakers and practitioners engaged in voter education efforts may counter vote buying by informing candidates of the potential electoral benefits to championing anti-vote buying platforms and providing community services. Likewise, scholars can better understand elections, representation and democracy by further exploring how different types of voters respond to various campaign appeals in Africa.
... Researchers have shown that support for PRR parties is as motivated by ideological concerns as support for any other party (Van Der Brug et al. 2000). However, the characterization of India as a 'patronage democracy' (Chandra 2004;Kenny 2017) has translated into the prevailing wisdom that contemporary Indian politics is primarily nonideological and is instead dominated by pragmatism, clientelism and personalism (Chhibber and Verma 2018). Scholars have warned that we should 'not overemphasize the role of ideology in India's party politics' (Suri 2013: 240) because even if parties 'do profess to stick to their party ideology … in their actual support they seem to be more pragmatic' (Hasan 2010: 248). ...
... Scholars have warned that we should 'not overemphasize the role of ideology in India's party politics' (Suri 2013: 240) because even if parties 'do profess to stick to their party ideology … in their actual support they seem to be more pragmatic' (Hasan 2010: 248). For these reasons, the political behaviour of Indian citizens is rarely described as being guided by ideological and programmatic motivations; rather, it is seen as the outcome of religious and caste considerations (Chandra 2004;Heath and Yadav 2010;Shah 2004), aimed at accessing state and private resources through clientelist networks (Chatterjee 2004;Piliavsky 2014;Ziegfeld 2016), and rooted in trust and feelings of reverence for a strong leader (Sircar 2020). Despite recent studies challenging this (for a review, see Auerbach et al. 2021), the dominant view remains that 'far less "ideology" is observed in India than in consolidated Western democracies' (Sircar 2020: 15). ...
While India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become recognized as a populist radical right (PRR) party under the leadership of Narendra Modi, we do not know whether this PRR supply is matched yet by PRR attitudes among its supporters. Using an original survey, we therefore investigate: Do BJP supporters display PRR attitudes? We find that those who feel close to the BJP have stronger populist and nativist attitudes than other Indian citizens. However, authoritarianism is not a distinguishing feature of BJP supporters. We argue that the similarities between the drivers of support for European PRR parties and for the BJP reinforce the idea that radical right populism is a coherent global phenomenon both in terms of supply and demand. Finally, we discuss how our study shows that party support in India is more ideologically rooted than has previously been thought.
... We also know that some party ties are more durable than others. Ethnicity-based party ties are generally assumed to trump ties based on other political preferences (Chandra, 2011). This also raises the question concerning how party ties are affected by emigration, meaning which factors remain influential for party ties after migration. ...
... Ethnic parties can also be defined in terms of who they claim to represent. In this case, a party represents itself to voters as a champion of the interests of an ethnic group and makes such a representation central to its mobilizing strategies (Chandra, 2004). Early literature on ethnic politics often assumed that ethnic identity was hardwired and its salience intrinsic (Rabushka & Shepsle, 1972), but more recent scholarship suggests that political and socio-economic factors influence the salience of ethnic identities (e.g., Laitin, 1998). ...
Recent decades have seen a trend toward enfranchising emigrated citizens in home country elections. Political parties have also become increasingly interested in connecting with emigrant voters. That said, we still know little of what voters think of the parties in the home country and how party preferences may change because of migration. On the one hand, research shows that the experience of migration and the context of the host country have a significant impact on the political behavior of migrants. On the other hand, party ties are known to be resistant to change. In this paper, we study how what is generally assumed to be the strongest of party ties, namely ties to an ethnic party, is affected by migration. Utilizing two highly comparable surveys of resident and non-resident citizens, we study how identifying with an ethnic minority party among Finland-Swedes in Finland, where they constitute a linguistic minority, compares with emigrated Finland-Swedes in Sweden, where they speak the majority language. We find that party ties, even with an ethnic party, tend to be weaker for emigrated citizens. However, the difference is relatively small and only materializes after an extended stay abroad.
... Исследователями на примере самых разных стран неоднократно прослежены возможности политической мобилизации на основах этноцентризма (Bates, 1983;Wantchekon, 2003;Posner, 2005;Franck, Rainer, 2012;Hoffman, Long, 2013). При этом политика этнического фаворитизма наблюдается как в автократиях, так и в странах с демократическим политическим режимом (Chandra, 2004). ...
... Данная политика, базировавшаяся на распределении как символических, так и сугубо материальных благ, обосновывалась с помощью идеологии этнонационализма (Sharafutdinova, 2013). В рамках подобной практики этнического фаворитизма (Chandra, 2004) главы республик формировали этническое ядро электоральной поддержки. ...
An invariable characteristic of Russian elections in the post-Soviet period is the relatively-high turnout and electoral support of incumbents demonstrated by many of the ethnic republics. The article is devoted to the study of the reasons for the relationship between the ethnic factor and the reproduction of political loyalty. Unlike most previous studies, the authors test existing theories on the basis of opinion polls data rather than official electoral statistics. This makes it possible to include the ethnic characteristics of voters at the individual level in the analysis, rather than regional or local levels. The statistical analysis is complemented by the study of qualitative data in the form of expert interviews and materials from three focus groups conducted in the villages of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. The results obtained make it possible to assert that the political loyalty of the Russian republics is determined not by cultural specifics, but by the nature of the settlement structure. Ethnic republics include a relatively-high proportion of the agrarian population, a significant part of which is represented by ethnic minorities. This overlap of ethnic and rural segments determines the reproduction of the electoral super-majority. However, the nature of this phenomenon is explained not by the “patriarchal culture” of non-Russian ethnic groups, but by the institutional capabilities of the local administration to monitor and control the political behavior of rural voters. The study also made it possible to clarify the role of the ethnic factor in contemporary electoral processes, which also affects the reproduction of political loyalty not only to the heads of the republics, but also to non-ethnic federal political actors. However, its influence is also conditioned by the political and institutional characteristics of the ethnic republics, and not by the cultural characteristics of the titular ethnic groups.
... The micro-foundation of the relative ease of harnessing the social resource base of co-ethnic organizations and controlling the broader ethnic constituency in the absence of rivals is ethnic parochialism-individuals' tendency to cooperate more with and favor members of their ethnic group-which has been documented in sociopolitical settings ranging from voting and patronage distribution to contribution to public goods, the "stacking" of security forces, and wartime informing (Posner 2004;Ferree 2006;Chandra 2007;Roessler 2011;Franck and Rainer 2012;Sambanis, Schulhofer-Wohl, and Shayo 2012;Lyall, Shiraito, and Imai 2015;Corstange 2016;Robinson 2020). In the context of multiparty civil wars, this co-ethnic bias translates in a tendency for individuals to be inclined to support, cooperate with, and join rebel organizations claiming to represent their ethnic group, giving rise to intense interorganizational competition for a "biddable" population often taking a violent form (Pischedda 2020). ...
... The point is that ethnic traits are generally more difficult to hide and more frequently perceived by both in-groups and out-groups as ascriptive, that is inherited and thus unchangeable. See Chandra (2007) and Wimmer (2013). 13 Various evolutionary perspectives also converge in suggesting that ethnic constituencies should generally elicit stronger emotional responses than other constituency types (Bowles and Gintis 2013; Gat 2013). ...
Challenging influential perspectives that downplay the role of shared rebel constituencies, we argue that they represent important causes of rebel alliances. Yet, we theorize distinct effects for different types of constituency. While compatible political aspirations push both organizations with a common ideological constituency and those with a common ethnic constituency to ally, for co-ethnic organizations this cooperation-inducing effect is offset by a cooperation-suppressing effect due to their higher risk of inter-rebel war. Leveraging a novel dataset of alliances in multiparty civil wars (1946–2015), we find support for our theoretical expectations. Shared ideological constituencies have a larger and more robust positive effect on the probability of alliances than shared ethnic constituencies. Furthermore, we find that co-ethnic rebel organizations tend to establish informal alliances only, while organizations sharing an ideological constituency are drawn to formal alliances.
... Звенья цепи: религия, сети, институты Роль этнического фактора в политических процессах вряд ли можно переоценить. Ученые в самых разных странах мира и на примерах самых разных политических режимов исследуют этот феномен, отмечая роль этнокультурных маркеров в электоральной мобилизации (Bates, 1983;Gorenburg, 1999;Gorenburg, 2003;Wantchekon, 2003;Chandra, 2004;Posner, 2005;Birnir, 2007;Franck and Rainer, 2012;. В советский период вопросы национализма и этноцентризма всегда оставались чрезвычайно значимыми, став одной из причин кризиса и распада СССР (Lapidus et al., 1992;Kaiser, 1994;Tishkov, 1997;. ...
... Поэтому, кроме объективных поселенческих характеристик, облегчающих работу политических машин, власти в этнических республиках имеют дополнительный рычаг воздействия на электорат в виде «клубных благ», распределяемых на этнократических принципах. Используя идеологию этнонационализма (Sharafutdinova, 2013), главы республик обеспечивают сохранение этнического ядра своей электоральной поддержки, воспроизводя практики этнического фаворитизма (Chandra, 2004). Важным моментом данного объяснения является то, что этнический фактор обусловливает электоральную мобилизацию не сам по себе, а только при наличии усилий региональных элит по институционализации этничности посредством идеологического обоснования этнократических практик в виде концепта этнофедерализма и особых прав титульных этносов. ...
Introduction: researchers of the Russian elections have long noticed that in a number of ethnic republics the level of electoral mobilization and political conformism of voters is higher than the average in Russia. Despite the fairly numerous statistical evidence of the existence of this political phenomenon, we still know relatively little about the specific causal mechanisms for the reproduction of electoral activity in these republics. Objectives: identifying the factors bringing about a high level of electoral mobilization in ethnic republics in Russia. Methods: analysis of qualitative data collected through focus groups method in five regions: Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Tatarstan, Komi Republic, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and Chuvash Republic. Results: as the result of the study it is concluded that a high level of electoral mobilization is caused by the combination of three factors, each of which affects different categories of voters. The institutional factor in the form of political machines involves into the electoral process those employed in public sector and industrial enterprises. The density of social networks resulting from specificity of rural way of life influences the electoral behavior of entrepreneurs and self-employed people living in the countryside. Finally, the Soviet legacy continues to determine the high political activity of the older generation, acting as a significant cultural factor. At the same time, there has been no empirical proof to a number of explanations whereby religion or ethnic culture of non-Russian ethnic groups is viewed as factors that simplify electoral mobilization. Conclusions: evidence on the role of the solidarity norms in rural areas during elections makes it possible to conclude that the consolidation and high intensity of horizontal relationships do not always promote the reproduction of civil society institutions and grass-roots democratic practices. As it is shown in the experience of the Russian ethnic republics, this element of social consolidation may well be integrated into the design of authoritarian elections. Thus, informal networks of grass-roots solidarity can be used not only by the opposition, but also by local authorities to increase electoral mobilization, which, in the current political context, rather strengthens authoritarian orders and practices than creates threats to them.
... Ethnic voting promotes division within society and undermines democratic institutions by limiting the competition between candidates based on policy proposals. It also perpetuates political instability, as political parties increasingly cater to ethnic constituencies rather than broader national interests (Chandra, 2004). This fragmentation often results in political gridlock, as coalitions are formed not based on ideological alignment, but on ethnic compromise (Lijphart, 1999). ...
Journal of Iranian International Legal Studies
The Journal of Iranian International Legal Studies outlines the mission and objectives of the Iranian Independent International Bar Association (IIntbar) for law graduates and civil activists. Membership in IIntbar is accessible to these individuals, emphasizing the transition of legal practice from a commercial profession to a civil advocacy role. The primary philosophical step in this transformation is redefining legal practice from a purely financial derivative to an outcome of civil actions in defense of international rights for individuals, nations, and even states.
Membership and submission of manuscripts is open to civil activists (regardless of their nationality) and law graduates in the fields of philosophy of law, religious law, international law, and philosophy of politics. IIntbar aims to establish a new perspective in defending the global rights of Iranians and Middle Eastern nationals. It operates independently, with no affiliations to the Islamic Republic of Iran or any other governments, serving as a platform for discourse and research in international law. The association is not a professional guild and will maintain its independent and non-governmental status.
Manuscripts and publications can be submitted to this journal by authors from any country, without any restrictions based on nationality.
... Underlining the instrumental and transactional dimension that facilitated his presidency in the panchayat, Sundaresan, a DMK leader, remarked that 'Thankaraj aligns himself with one political party here and quite possibly another political party in Coimbatore.' (Interview, 2017) 16. Here we are drawing from the understanding of clientelism as provided by Chandra (2004). She notes that 'clientelism' is typically used to refer to a dyadic transaction between traditional notables and their dependents, who are bound by ties of reciprocity (2004,51). ...
This study engages with debates on Tamil populism using insights from the field. The initial theorists of Tamil populism characterised it broadly into two — assertive populism propagated by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and paternalist populism promulgated by the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). However, recent scholarship has strongly opposed this characterisation, arguing that Tamil populism approximates left populism. With these confounding views as the backdrop, we argue, through field insights, that one cannot discount the formulation of Tamil populism along assertive/paternalist lines. Secondly, we contest the recent formulation that the Dravidian Model approximates left populism.
... This would explain why politicians try to take advantage of these identity-priming effects when there are images present. The use of images that reinforce gender (Valentino et al., 2002) or ethnic identity in contexts of strong ethnic polarization (Chandra, 2007) are good examples of this phenomenon. Moehler and Conroy-Krutz (2016) showed that watching the faces of candidates in the 2011 Ugandan general elections primed voters about the ethnicity of candidates, which in turn led them to increase co-ethnic voting. ...
Does learning political candidates’ social categories through visual cues affect voter preferences? This paper explores this question by conducting a visual conjoint survey experiment with 2324 German voters, varying whether respondents received information on candidates through explicit labels or pretested AI-generated candidate pictures. The results confirm our expectations that the way in which social categories are perceived affects preferences, with visual cues having a more significant effect on voter preferences compared to textual cues, leading to more discriminatory preferences for certain social categories. Moreover, we show that the effect of visual cues is moderated by the visibility of social categories, with visible social categories, such as gender binaries and ethnic in-/out-group, eliciting more discriminatory preferences with visual cues. The study sheds light on how visible and invisible social categories affect political candidates’ preferences and emphasizes the importance of considering the intersectionality of social categories and their relationship with ideology.
... While much literature on developing democracies accepts that shared identity is often a defining factor in electoral politics, studies offer distinct reasons for ethnic voting. Instrumental explanations for ethnic voting suggest that identitybased appeals function as an informational shortcut to voters, with voters perceiving shared identity as a conduit through which they will receive material goods and services-both private and local club goods-from in-group politicians (Bates 1983;Chandra 2004;Conroy-Krutz 2013;Ferree et al. 2021). Others find that the appeal of coethnicity is dampened where it is not accompanied by good performance; that is, "the effects of ethnicity and performance are conditional on one another because only candidates who are both coethnic and good performers can reliably be expected to favor the voter with local public goods" (Carlson 2015, 378). ...
How do voters in ethnically polarized settings evaluate coethnic candidates in an environment of hybrid provision of public goods, especially where such hybrid provision includes links to criminal actors? In numerous urban settings around the world, local public goods provision involves a complex mix of private vendors, state services, and criminal actors. This paper explores how voters in Karachi, Pakistan evaluate candidates making distinct claims to water provision. We present findings from a survey experiment of over 2000 Karachi residents surveyed in 2021–2022. We find that while voters generally prefer coethnic candidates regardless of their ability to provide water, a non-coethnic candidate’s access to the state water bureaucracy can decrease the coethnic advantage and increase the credibility of a non-coethnic candidate. This is particularly the case among voters least satisfied with their water supply and most reliant on private sources of water. However, contrary to literature that finds that criminality can signal competence or the likelihood of goods and services being directed to coethnics, ties to the illegal water mafia do not offer either coethnic or non-coethnic candidates any additional advantage.
... At the national level, religious minorities are more likely to feel dominated, marginalized, excluded, and discriminated against by the majority group. But below the national level religious minorities are often clustered and concentrated in segregated local communities (Asher et al. 2023;Pew Research Center 2021), so they are likely to be better represented in local political institutions (Chandra 2004;Posner 2005). They should have less resistance to and distrust of institutions in their local community than of national institutions, where they struggle to win and maintain a foothold of political representation, descriptive or substantive (Allie 2023). ...
This study examines relative trust in national versus local institutions in South Asia using a tripartite framework that combines political and economic performance with religious identity to explain the three categories of relative trust that correspond to individuals whose trust in national institutions is stronger than, equal to, or weaker than their trust in local institutions. In particular, religious minorities in South Asia are often discriminated against and poorly represented at the national level but tend to cluster in local communities, which erodes their trust in national institutions but not necessarily in local institutions. The empirical analysis of two waves of South Asian Barometer surveys eight years apart produced consistent results which suggest that the religious segregation and discrimination in South Asian countries tilt relative trust patterns among religious minorities in favor of local institutions at the expense of national ones.
... We do know through a large literature that ethnicity affects a host of social and political outcomes, including public goods provision (Alesina et al., 1999;Habyarimana et al., 2007;Miguel & Gugerty, 2005), vote choice (Carlson, 2015;Chandra, 2004), political accountability (Adida et al., 2017), wartime informing (Lyall et al., 2013), and even survey responses (Adida et al., 2016). While the causal processes underlying these relationships continue to be debated, much of this work empirically establishes that, on average, people prefer coethnics to non-coethnics across a number of different settings. ...
City residents in the Global South commonly encounter the police. Yet, outside of established democracies, we know little about how ethnicity shapes everyday policing in diverse urban contexts. Existing approaches generate competing expectations, with some arguing that officers are more rather than less discriminatory towards coethnics. We test these theories through a survey experiment conducted in Karachi, Pakistan—one of the world’s largest megacities. We find that civilians are only marginally less likely to expect procedural justice from non-coethnic officers, even in a context where ethnicity is highly salient. However, suggestive evidence indicates that this small effect is significantly magnified for respondents who perceive their group to be underrepresented in the police. Descriptive representation is therefore a powerful moderator of the relationship between ethnicity and expectations of police bias. These results have implications for the development of effective and legitimate police institutions in weakly institutionalized contexts.
... Michelutti offers the suggestive thought that '(w)hen the idea of democracy takes social roots in a nation and becomes independent from the elite, popular politics thrives ' (ibid.: 229). This demotic trend is amply illustrated in Michelutti's work and connects with other literature on the recent rise of lower status groups in north Indian politics (Chandra 2004;Jaffrelot and Kumar 2009). ...
... Such a nexus between a political party and castes/communities has been comparatively stable. The castes/communities would continue to vote for the party in the election, because they know that only that particular party represents their interests and that other parties do not, whether the party is in the government or outside it (Chandra 2004). And each party could not deviate much from its original political position if it violates the interests of its 'own' caste/community. ...
... The old logic of caste has not altogether disappeared, critics say; old castes have closed their ranks, and new castes and even 'super castes ' have emerged (e.g., Michelutti 2008;Rudolph and Rudolph 1960). These communities, however, are no longer the interdependent, hierarchically ordered castes, but increasingly freestanding, internally mixed, and egalitarian ethnic groups that compete over political and economic resources (e.g., Barnett 1975;Chandra 2004;Fuller 1996). We have been told, in other words, that caste has persisted more in form than in substance, displaced as it has been by various mixed 'publics' united by shared political and economic concerns. ...
... brokers mostly use intimate connections to politicians-or are themselves local politicians-to provide protection and state services to their clients. Sometime money exchanges hands, sometimes support during elections is what is pledged (Chandra 2004;Piliavsky, 2014). Mediation is also a central part of justice delivery in South Asia, where local brokers would settle many disputes outside court, and use again the power derived from their political connections to enforce their decisions (see e.g. ...
Around half a million rickshaws ply the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh. To deal with the problem of theft, owner associations started to issue ‘thief plates’. These allow owners to get their rickshaws back at a reduced price. They also offer a protection against theft. This article argues that these plates form material mediators brokering relations between rickshaw owners and drivers, and thieves. Building on the literature on state-citizen brokerage, bureaucratic materialities and Anton Blok’s work on mafia, it wants to highlight the centrality of mediation in understanding practices of protection/extortion. It also aims to contribute to the literature on mafia in South Asia, showing the need to pay attention to norms of non-violence when dealing with violent or criminal strongmen.
... When party competition is based on identity politics, parties make pledges that either advantage or disadvantage relevant groups. Non-populist identity-based parties may seek to advance the interests of the ethnic, regional or religious groups that they represent, while recognising the legitimacy of other groups' interests in pluralist societies (Chandra, 2004). These are parties that make pledges intended to appeal to their distinct constituencies by directing material resources or opportunities to them (Posner, 2004;Torcal & Mainwaring, 2003). ...
Election pledges feature prominently in the theory and practice of representation and have been examined extensively in a growing field of comparative research. However, research in this field has largely ignored non-Western democracies and the world’s largest electoral democracy, India. The present analysis begins to fill this lacuna by examining election pledges made by Indian parties at the national level over a period of two decades (1999-2019) and comparing this with selected Western parties. The extension of research on election pledges to India prompts us to assess the relevance of pledges to the distinctive characteristics of Indian party competition. This differs markedly from the spatial model of party competition that is often applied in pledge research in Western systems. Party competition in India is instead characterised largely by valence politics on socioeconomic issues and by identity politics on religious issues. The quantitative and qualitative analyses demonstrate the distinct features of pledges in policy areas characterised by valence and identity politics. We discuss the implications of the findings for understanding party competition in India and for the broader research programme on election pledges.
... While such cross-national differences in levels of AP are likely driven by multiple (economic, institutional, and social) causes, we highlight in this article how one important characteristic of political competition in each society may facilitate AP. Drawing on the large comparative literature on ethnic politics (Horowitz, 1985;Chandra, 2004;Posner, 2004), we argue that societies in which politics is ethnicized (that is, societies in which ethnic differences strongly condition elections and/or representation) are more likely to suffer from AP. Insofar as the concept of affective polarization is ideationally proximate to the notion of conflict with which authors in the ethnic politics literature are most commonly concerned, we see an obvious bridge between these literatures. We draw on two main intuitions from this literature. ...
Because the debate over the sources of affective polarization has so far mostly focused on the US case, scholars have rarely considered whether the politicization of ethnic differences—when elections and representative processes happen along ethnic lines—may be associated to affective polarization. Looking at both country-level indicators and aggregating individual-level ones, we show that in countries in which ethnicity is politically relevant, there will be, on average, higher levels of affective polarization. This implies that high levels of affective polarization are more likely to occur in societies in which elections revolve around ethnic differences. We then show that as the share of the population who are members of the “ethnic group in power” increases, there will be, on average, a corresponding fall in affective polarization. Together, these findings reinforce the claim that ideological polarization is not the sole factor of affective polarization (AP), by showing that country-level differences in levels of AP owe, in part, to differences in the degree of ethnicization of politics.
... Chhibber and Murali (2006) finds that the law gets violated in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (Hindi Belt) where in Southern states, situation is close to Duverger's law. Chandra (2007) suggests that the ethnic identity can be a reason for high number of parties in Uttar Pradesh which violates the Duverger's law. The geographically concentrated minority parties can also an important role. ...
Democracy across the world has witnessed the evolution of the electoral system. The First-past-the-post (FPTP) system practiced in India has certain disadvantages, such as disproportional representation. This paper analyses the election outcome in FPTP electoral system in a diverse society like India using constituency-level information for the Lok Sabha election. I examine how social diversity, religious diversity, and fractionalization affect the outcome in the FPTP system. The fractionalization index for religious diversity, polarization index for religious polarization, and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index for vote concentration are formed for Lok Sabha constituencies to understand the impact of diversity on vote concentration as well as vote share of winning candidates. Further regression analysis is done where state-specific and time-specific effects are controlled. It is found that fractionalization i.e. religious diversity affects the vote concentration negatively. It is also found that on average the vote concentration for SC/ST reserved constituencies is lower than general constituencies. This suggests that religious diversity reduces the vote concentration which further leads to disproportionality. It is important to think of ways to provide the space for the parties which are getting votes but not getting seats in Lok Sabha, especially for reserved constituencies.
... Because in-groups take ethnic differences to be genealogically derived and historically deep, ethnic identification and solidarity tend to be deep-seated, emotionally intensive, and enduring (Geertz 1963;Shils 1957). Instrumentalists, however, do not consider ethnic identity formation as a natural phenomenon; rather it is a product of politics itself (Chandra 2004;Posner 2017). Ethnic identity only becomes salient to individuals when that particular identity is politicized and mobilized by elites for instrumental ends (Posner 2017). ...
Mainstream scholarship on ethnic politics tends to consider ethnic conflict as the de facto state of affairs in deeply divided postcolonial societies. Ethnic group formation appears to be enduring and self-reinforcing in these societies. That is, once an ethnic group identity is formed, it has tremendously staying power with political outcomes. This view, however, assumes that the state is a passive arena for social groups or actors to act out their ethnic politics. This paper, on the other hand, subscribes to the statist paradigm in emphasizing the autonomous power of the state. I argue that state elites, with access to the state’s infrastructural and despotic power, have the capacity to shape the trajectory of ethnic politics by constraining the political opportunity structure for ethnic mobilization as well as increasing the ameliorative prospect for inter-ethnic accommodation. In doing so, plural societies need not be predisposed to ethnic conflict since powerful states may have the autonomous power to determine the political outcomes of ethnic identities, subjecting it to change over time. I substantiate this theory with a comparative case study between pre-independent (colonial) and post-independent Singapore to make a causal inference between state autonomy and trajectory of ethnic politics. Very briefly, my findings indicate that the Singapore state, after its authoritarian turn, had the infrastructural and despotic power to institute a regime of ethnic depoliticization, which eventually subsided the potency of ethnic politics in society. This was marked by a decline in the ethnic party system, ethnic voting patterns and ethnic violence. Through this case study, this paper offers a causal estimate between the autonomous power of the state and the trajectory of ethnic politics, and ‘brings the state back in’ to the study of ethnic politics and ethnic conflict management.
... This is even more visible in societies that are segregated by attributes such as ethnicity, race, or gender. Outsiders that may have different attributes are likely not to be trusted and stereotyping becomes common (Chandra, 2007;Cornell & Welch, 1996as cited by Glaeser et al., 2000; Negative stereotyping about one group may affect the performance of the members of that particular group (Hoff & Pandey, 2003;Steele et al., 2002). And because of apartheid's divide and conquer strategy, and the stigmatisation of Black people (Burns, 2006), trust seems to be low within the Black population group (Burns, 2006). ...
Research has revealed a persistently low level of entrepreneurial activity among the Black South Africans, the majority of whom live in the townships. And the government has a major concern regarding the level of unemployment and poverty faced by this population group. It has therefore put into place a number of programs to foster entrepreneurship in order to develop the economy and employment. Despite these efforts, the level of entrepreneurship among Black South Africans, who constitute the majority of the population, has consistently remained low. This qualitative study, applying critical realism ontology, examines how a historical institution like apartheid through its racial discrimination policies may still affect current entrepreneurial behaviour. The outcomes demonstrate the impact of active social mechanisms, notably the underlying institutional logics on their effect on entrepreneurial behaviour. This may be useful in designing more efficient programmes to foster entrepreneurship within the township spatial context. The study contributes to the areas of spatial context, entrepreneurial motives, and entrepreneurial behaviour in relation to the understudied micro level effects of legacies of previously dominant institutional logics.
... Recent research has shown that economic inequality strengthens ethnic identities (Higashijima and Houle, 2018), increases ethnic political cooperation (Stewart and McGauvran 2019), and support for ethnic parties (Houle et al., 2019). Further, ethnic parties often focus on economic issues, as the motivation behind ethnic parties stems from providing a tangible benefit to a specific group of people (Fearon, 1999), and ethnic party members often vote based on the assumption that ethnic parties will deliver benefits to group members (Birnir, 2006;Chandra, 2007;Ferree, 2011). Where economic inequality is linked to ethnic identity, parties that focus on economic issues will be motivated to take on increasingly extreme positions on ethnic issues since both their economic and their ethnic platform will appeal to the same, ethnically defined constituency. ...
Ethnic outbidding, where parties adopt ever more extreme positions to capture electoral advantage, has become an increasingly common practice among ethnic parties. As economic issues have often served as a catalyst for ethnic tension, increasing levels of economic inequality should lead parties to adopt more extreme positions in an attempt to outbid one another. Furthermore, as their economic and ethnic platforms will appeal to the same ethnically defined constituency, ethnic outbidding should be more effective where inequality is high. Using a sample of over 150 ethnonational parties in Europe between 2011 and 2017, this paper finds that inequality is linked to increasing ideological extremism along a number of policy dimensions. Employing local-level voting data for Romania and Slovakia, we show that higher inequality makes adopting a more ideological extreme position a more successful electoral strategy, especially where economic issues are ethnically salient.
Scholars have unpacked the conditions out of which electorally successful ethnic parties in Europe emerge and the important roles they play in diverse contexts. But the existing research overlooks important political actors, whose influence explains some of the behaviors of these ethnic parties. In this analysis, we explore the different roles of co-ethnic core intermediaries (CCIs) – that is, officials who come from the same ethnic groups as those whose interests ethnic parties champion but represent other mainstream political parties. Based on an illustrative case study of the Swedish-speaking Finns, this article demonstrates that CCIs both benefit and threaten ethnic parties: they generate support among and facilitate collaboration with other mainstream political parties; however, they also cause voter attrition and pursue ethnic causes in ways that differ from the ethnic party.
It has been postulated that encouraging the financial recovery of Bosnia and Herzegovina will promote the easing of its ethnic polarization. However, when juxtaposing the results of Bosnian parliamentary elections from 2002 to 2022 with the country’s economic fluctuations in the same period, our longitudinal study shows that ethno-nationalist voting behavior correlates with unemployment levels especially in the Banja Luka and Prijedor areas of the Republika Srpska. In an effort to update Modernization Theory, the main finding of this paper is that an improving economy—as measured by unemployment—may be a factor in helping to ease ethnic tensions in certain subsets of BiH’s society. As the correlation cannot be shown with GDP, however, or in most individual voting districts in BiH, economic performance cannot be assumed to be the powerful influence on ethnic reconciliation that some had expected or assumed after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
This paper explores the emergence of the Bhim Army, a Dalit-led social movement in North India that has gained significant political influence in recent years. In doing so, it develops the idea of “boss power” as a cultural repertoire in North India through which marginalized actors negotiate and engage with the state and society. It shows how the organization creates new identities based on masculinity, civic duty, and radical victimhood to enact power in response to caste marginalization and state capture. However, despite its attempts to build a diverse base, the Bhim Army’s appeal remains limited in terms of gender and class.
When do IMF programs induce protest? Despite much cross-country research on this question, there is little evidence on how IMF programs affect individual predispositions for protest and protest behavior. This article argues that governments facing IMF conditionality allocate adjustment burdens strategically, protecting their partisan supporters while punishing supporters of the political opposition. This intensification of distributional politics under IMF programs will increase protests by opposition supporters. To test this argument, we utilize a mixed-method strategy combining individual-level survey evidence from 12 sub-Saharan African countries and an intertemporal case study of Kenya. The results find strong evidence for our argument. Opposition supporters are significantly more likely to protest when a government goes under an IMF program, especially when the program entails public-sector conditions. Our analysis suggests that governments are not innocent bystanders in the adjustment process. Instead, they co-determine inclinations for protest by deciding over the allocation of adjustment burdens to the detriment of opposition groups and the benefit of their supporters. These results have important implications for the role of governments as purveyors of pressures for global policy reform induced by international financial institutions.
This chapter examines the political development of Trinidad and Tobago (TT) with a focus on payoffs to the voter base and corruption. TT can be described as an ethnic-based patronage democracy where voters prioritize parties based on ethnicity rather than political ideologies. The data shows that shifts in employment by ethnicity occur under different political administrations, favouring the ethnic base of the ruling party. This rationalizes voting along ethnic lines as it increases the chances of securing public jobs when one’s party wins. Ethnicity and political affiliation influence attitudes towards corruption, with insiders showing more tolerance. Trust in the government is generally low and fluctuates based on the ethnic background of the prime minister in power, leading to shifts in trust levels between administrations, particularly among certain demographics. This chapter underscores the importance of combating corruption and bolstering trust in the government.
While existing scholarship recognizes the centrality of social organizations for party-building efforts, how network structures condition party-building remains underexamined. This article argues that a core property of the network environments within which proto-parties emerge—structural resilience—shapes opportunities for proto-parties’ expansion and consolidation. More resilient network structures—those with multiple pathways available for expansion—decrease proto-parties’ vulnerability to structural threats and allow them to circumvent competition. To evaluate this theory, I examine the organizational networks of three comparable indigenous party-building efforts in Bolivia. Using original network data and a mixed-methods approach, I demonstrate that MAS-IPSP succeeded in establishing itself as the indigenous party because of the structural resilience of the network environment within which it originated. By contrast, its counterparts failed when targeted network attacks undermined their access to organizational spaces critical to their expansion strategies. The findings reveal often-overlooked variation in the relationship between social organizations and political parties.
This article offers a novel perspective on policymaking in personalist dictatorships based on outbidding theory. Originally developed with reference to ethnic conflict and terrorist organizations, outbidding suggests that individuals or organizations compete for support from their relevant audience, which produces predictable outcomes. I present a modified version of outbidding theory derived from the incentives faced by autocratic elites’ desire to avoid upward accountability and attract the favour of the dictator. I probe the theory’s plausibility for explaining policymaking in one prominent authoritarian legislature, the State Duma in Russia. Using two conditions “most likely” to reveal outbidding dynamics – the archetypal personalist regime of Putin’s Russia and the realm of electoral policy – I couple quantitative text analysis with rigorous study of legislative debates. The findings support the existence of outbidding behaviour in Russian policymaking, suggest that it may result in positive outcomes for Duma deputies, and substantiate outbidding’s effects on the repressiveness of public policy.
Many governments face similar pressures surrounding the hotly debated topic of immigration. Yet, the disparate ways in which policy makers respond is striking. The Comparative Politics of Immigration explains why democratic governments adopt the immigration policies they do. Through an in-depth study of immigration politics in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States, Antje Ellermann examines the development of immigration policy from the postwar era to the present. The book presents a new theory of immigration policymaking grounded in the political insulation of policy makers. Three types of insulation shape the translation of immigration preference into policy: popular insulation from demands of the unorganized public, interest group insulation from the claims of organized lobbies, and diplomatic insulation from the lobbying of immigrant-sending states. Addressing the nuances in immigration reforms, Ellermann analyzes both institutional factors and policy actors' strategic decisions to account for cross-national and temporal variation.
What determines which identity cleavage, ethnicity or religion, is mobilized in political contestation, be it peaceful or violent? In contrast to common predictions that the greatest contention occurs where identities are fully segmented, most identity conflicts in the world are between ethnic groups that share religion. Alternatives in Mobilization builds on the literature about political demography to address this seeming contradiction. The book proposes that variation in relative group size and intersection of cleavages help explain conundrums in the mobilization of identity, across transgressive and contained political settings. This theory is tested cross-nationally on identity mobilization in civil war and across violent conflict in Pakistan, Uganda, Nepal and Turkey, and peaceful electoral politics in Indonesia. This book helps illustrate a more accurate and improved picture of the ethnic and religious tapestry of the world and addresses an increasing need for a better understanding of how religion contributes to conflict.
Politicians in Southeast Asia, as in many other regions, win elections by distributing cash, goods, jobs, projects, and other benefits to supporters, but the ways in which they do this vary tremendously, both across and within countries. Mobilizing for Elections presents a new framework for analyzing variation in patronage democracies, focusing on distinct forms of patronage and different networks through which it is distributed. The book draws on an extensive, multi-country, multi-year research effort involving interactions with hundreds of politicians and vote brokers, as well as surveys of voters and political campaigners across the region. Chapters explore how local machines in the Philippines, ad hoc election teams in Indonesia, and political parties in Malaysia pursue distinctive clusters of strategies of patronage distribution – what the authors term electoral mobilization regimes. In doing so, the book shows how and why patronage politics varies, and how it works on the ground.
La alternancia política representa la expresión ciudadana respecto a la aprobación del gobierno y obliga al gobernante a trabajar por el bienestar de la población, para demostrar que su partido tiene la capacidad para continuar en el poder. En este trabajo, se analiza el efecto de la asignación de transferencias locales (públicas y privadas) sobre la probabilidad de alternancia partidista en los municipios mexicanos. Con el objeto de determinar su eficacia como medio de control político-clientelar y como factor determinante de la permanencia de los partidos en el poder. Se especifica una ecuación con variable dependiente discreta no dicotómica, por su naturaleza utilizamos un modelo econométrico estimado con un Logit Ordenado. Los resultados muestran que en los municipios que han experimentado menos de tres alternancias en su historia, las transferencias privadas son eficientes en mantener el poder, mientras que la provisión de bienes públicos gana eficiencia para evitar la alternancia en municipios con tres o más alternancias. Se concluye que la mejor estrategia de asignación para permanecer gobernando se basará en la rentabilidad electoral de cada tipo de transferencias. Una vez la competencia y la alternancia política se consoliden, serán las transferencias públicas de beneficio generalizado las de mayor impacto electoral.
The rise of populist welfare politics with the distinct flavour of Hindutva-inspired nationalism seems to have replaced pluralistic and class-based politics. However, Hindutva has been around for decades now, and until 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had never won a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. The 2014 election outcome cannot be explained by Hindutva-inspired new caste alliances only. This study suggests that what has changed is the social context of the information ecosystem in which election rallies are at the centre of campaign strategy. To illustrate the role of the campaign in the BJP’s victory in northern India, this study analyses and compares main themes from the rally speeches of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi in 2019 as well as how the two parties leveraged their organizational strength to disseminate campaign messages and narratives to the electorate.
Increasing the share of women in politics is often promoted as a means to reduce corruption. Recent studies indicate the importance of considering the gender gap in corruption as a dynamic, rather than static, phenomenon. Our study combines data from surveys and incentivized behavioral games among 400 inexperienced and experienced local politicians in West Bengal, India. We find no gender gap in attitudes toward corruption. However, in incentivized games, inexperienced female politicians are more honest than their male counterparts. No such gender gap exists among experienced politicians. Drawing on a theoretical discussion of four possible mechanisms, we find that the apparent increase in dishonest behavior among female politicians is associated with lower risk aversion and stronger political networks. Our findings indicate that women, like men, are socialized into their local political culture and that benefits from changing who is elected may be short‐lived unless that culture is also changed.
Millions of people from India’s northeastern state of Assam have to defend themselves against suspicions that they are illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. I explore how one such group of individuals, who work as waste pickers in Delhi, protect their citizenship against the combined vulnerabilities of being Assamese, Muslim, and residents of an unauthorized slum. I show that they develop a split relation with the government, defined by a costly requirement to vote in their borderland villages, and by avoidance for all matters linked to everyday life. By working hard in an occupation shunned by everyone else, they seem to uphold this citizenship of extraordinary political obligation and minimal entitlement. But when this equilibrium unravels around the debt that they contract to pay for basic services and for the trip home to cast their ballot, the price of their condition determined by suspicion, is revealed.
The literature suggests ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development. Yet, we also know that government policies—e.g., recognizing multiple languages in minority-sizable areas—can attenuate these effects. In this paper, we ask: What are the socioeconomic implications of minority language recognition? We leverage a legal stipulation in Romania as a quasi-experiment: Minority languages are recognized as official in areas where the minority constitutes more than 20% of the population. We argue the recognition of minority languages builds social trust and facilitates efficiency in economic exchanges—mollifying the otherwise detrimental consequences of diversity. Using data at the municipality level, we find that in areas where only Romanian is recognized, ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development—a result consistent with the literature. This effect, however, is absent in areas where a minority language is recognized. The implications suggest that lowering the threshold for language recognition could promote even further development.
Normative commitments to women’s rights remain uneven and contradictory in much of India. Yet, a range of actors intervene on women’s behalf when they experience abuse. Why do people help survivors of domestic violence? Using interview and ethnographic data from the state of West Bengal, this chapter delves into the motivations of those who work as brokers between women and the state. While they were not necessarily ideologically driven by their work, brokers did accrue significant cultural, social, symbolic, and economic capital by helping women. The author underscores how gender-based violence has become a site for capital accumulation, drawing people who may otherwise not be interested in advancing women’s claims into the business of rights.
State of Political Science with focus on India
Criminal extortion is an understudied, but widespread and severe problem in Latin America. In states that cannot or choose not to uphold the rule of law, victims are often seen as helpless in the face of powerful criminals. However, even under such difficult circumstances, victims resist criminal extortion in surprisingly different ways. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in violent localities in Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico, Moncada weaves together interviews, focus groups, and participatory drawing exercises to explain why victims pursue distinct strategies to resist criminal extortion. The analysis traces and compares processes that lead to individual acts of everyday resistance; sporadic killings by ad hoc groups of victims and police; institutionalized and sustained collective vigilantism; and coordination between victims and states to co-produce order in ways that both strengthen and undermine the rule of law. This book offers valuable new insights into the broader politics of crime and the state.
From public health to political campaigns, numerous attempts to encourage behavior begin with the spread of information. Of course, seeding new information does not guarantee action, especially when it is difficult for receivers to verify this information. We use a novel design that introduced valuable, actionable information in rural Uganda and reveals the intermediate process that led many in the village to hear the information but only some to act on it. We find that the seeded information spread easily through word of mouth via a simple contagion process. However, acting on the information spread less easily; this process relied instead on endogenously created social information that served to vet, verify, and pass judgment. Our results highlight an important wedge between information that a policy intervention can best control and the behavior that ultimately results.
Corruption, often described as all that is rotten in the modern society, has become an increasingly dominant theme in contemporary political discourse, one that is related to specific practices, concepts and evaluations that vary across regions, cultures, spheres of action and disciplines. This volume, through case studies, investigates corruption in the Global South (especially India and Brazil) and West (especially Switzerland) to gain a more nuanced view of the phenomenon. The chapters in this volume are organized into two loosely structured and overlapping parts: the first part consisting of Chapters 2-5 covers conceptual questions related to corruption discourses from different perspectives such as economic ethics, social capital theory and literature; the second part consisting of Chapters 6-11 details the complexity and diversity of corruption practices within and between countries and regions, providing different interpretative frameworks, which in turn flow into discourses on corruption.
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