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Ethnic Quotas and Political Mobilization: Caste, Parties, and Distribution in Indian Village Councils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2013

THAD DUNNING  and
JANHAVI NILEKANI
THAD DUNNING*
Affiliation:
Yale University
JANHAVI NILEKANI*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Thad Dunning is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Yale University, P.O. Box 208301, New Haven, CT 06520-8301 (thad.dunning@yale.edu).
Janhavi Nilekani is a graduate of Yale College and a Ph.D. student in Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
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Abstract

Ethnic quotas are often expected to induce distribution of material benefits to members of disadvantaged groups. Yet, the presence of an ethnic quota does not imply that political mobilization takes place along ethnic lines: Cross-cutting affiliations within multi-ethnic party organizations may lessen the tendency of politicians to target benefits to particular ethnic groups. In this article, we evaluate the impact of quotas for the presidencies of village councils in India, a subject of considerable recent research. Drawing on fine-grained information from surveys of voters, council members, presidents, and bureaucrats and using a natural experiment to isolate the effects of quotas in the states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Bihar, we find weak distributive effects of quotas for marginalized castes and tribes, but suggestive evidence of the importance of partisanship. We then use survey experiments to compare the influence of party and caste on voting preferences and expectations of benefit receipt. Our results suggest that especially when politicians have dynamic political incentives to allocate benefits along party lines, cross-cutting partisan ties can blunt the distributive impact of ethnic quotas.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 107 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 35 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013

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