Inequality and Ethnic Politics in India.
Prasad, Neeraj.
2019
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How does ethnic inequality affect the success of ethnic parties?
Using sub-national level data from India, I show that while inequality is critical
for understanding ethnic party success, the nature of this impact depends on the
type of group as well as the type of inequality in question. My analysis confirms
the existing finding that high between group inequality has a positive impact on
the ... read moreelectoral success of ethnic parties. But I also show that the impact of within
group inequality on ethnic party success is both substantively significant and
dependent on the type of ethnic group in question. In particular, within group
economic heterogeneity boosts the chances of elite ethnic group parties but
decreases the chances of non-elite ethnic group parties. From the perspective of
the existing literature, my finding on within group inequality is theoretically
puzzling. There is a long tradition in comparative politics that links
cross-cutting cleavages to the mitigation of political mobilization along a
specific identity dimension like ethnicity. The theoretical implication of their
approach for ethnic voting is that higher levels of economic inequality within a
given ethnic group should decrease the chances of ethnic voting. In contrast, I
develop and test a theoretical model that takes into account distributional
considerations within elite and non-elite ethnic groups in India. I argue that in
elite ethnic groups, a significant portion of the group earns more than the
population mean and hence is averse to distributional measures. Thus leaders of
elite ethnic parties face a trade-off between garnering votes from the poor
members of the group, who favor some sort of redistribution, and retaining the
wealthy members, who want to avoid the costs of redistribution. Economic
inequality within the group alleviates this trade-off by making it possible to
buy-off the poorer members of the group with relatively cheap redistributional
schemes. In the case of non-elite ethnic parties, the party leaders do not face
the same type of dilemma because the share of those who earn more than the
population mean within the group is relatively small. How does inequality shape
party-systems? Using comparative historical analysis, I show that when ethnic
inequality is high, parties mobilize along narrow ethnic identities. In contrast,
when ethnic inequality is low, parties mobilize along encompassing identities. I
study formation of party systems in three states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West
Bengal. Empirically, I improve upon existing operationalization of between-group
inequality. Existing indicators are insensitive to the relative performance and
rank ordering of individual identity groups. I propose a measure that rank orders
each group at the district-level. Furthermore, I measure ethnic inequality at the
district level using consumption expenditures reported in the National Sample
Surveys.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2019.
Submitted to the Dept. of Diplomacy, History, and Politics.
Advisor: Steven Block.
Committee: Daniel Drezner, Elizabeth Remick, and H Zeynep Bulutgil.
Keywords: Political science, South Asian studies, and Economics.read less - ID:
- m613nb25r
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