Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India

“…2010; Arcidiacono, 2005), politics (Bhavnani, 2009, 2017; Chauchard, 2014; Dunning and Nilekani, 2013; Jensenius, 2017; Besley et al., 2004; Pande, 2003; Karekurve-Ramachandra and Lee, forthcoming) and the private sector (Griffin, 1992; Carter, Simkins and Simpson 2003; Holzer and Neumark,…”

“Rosenzweig (2001) and Pande (2003) have shown that enhanced political rights of disadvantaged”

“Descriptive representation also decreases political alienation (Pantoja & Segura 2003).”

“Scholars have also taken up the political selection framework in empirical work: Notably, Pande (2003) and Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004), analyzing India’s elections, find voters use castes and tribes as signifiers of types who will reliably deliver public goods to the community once elected.6…”

“Pande (2003) finds that reservation for scheduled castes at the state level in India affected policies toward those groups.”

“In addition, female legislators may have different political preferences and give particular attention to women’s interests with the result of correcting a number of imbalances in different social and economic spheres (Pande, 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Chen, 2009).”

“Pande (2003) 19”The main support for the Naxalite movement comes from dalits (SC) and adivasis (ST) (Government of India (2008)).””

“In a similar vein, Pande (2003) provides evidence thatmandated political representation byminorities in India increases benefit transfers to its minority constituents.”

“In India, Pande (2003) finds that including disadvantaged minorities leads to increased public spending on programs from which these minorities might benefit; similarly, Bhalotra and Clots-Figueras (2014) determine that increased female representation leads to increased spending on programs that…”

“Pande (2003) examines reservations of state legislature jurisdictions for SC or ST officeholders, using 16 Indian states at the units of observation.”

“In the studies about India, the political reservation program is used as an ideal natural experiment (for example, Pande 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Beaman and others 2009).”

“ment Politicians can reward their own ethnic groups due to altruistic preferences (Pande, 2003),(Nye et al., 2014) or engage in patronage to reward their political supporters with public sector jobs (Robinson and Verdier, 2013).”

“Reservation has been found to redistribute access (e.g. Pande, 2003; Chin and Prakash, 2011), but evidence on its effects on education acquisition is scarce. observed in non-experimental settings, most studies rely on exam grades.4 Assuncao and Ferman (2015) use a differences-in-differences…”

“…studies of changes in mandated forms of representation in the developing world show that identity is causally related to different outcomes (Pande, 2003); and recent contributions in political science show that background characteristics of elected MPS and cabinet ministers affects their…”

“In the context of elections, Pande (2003) evaluated the effects of the Indian quota system for disadvantaged groups on the redistribution policy.”

“See Chandra (2006).”

“has been shown to increase political and economic representation for members of marginalized groups (Pande, 2003; Olken, 2010; Cascio and Washington, 2014; Fujiwara, 2015).”

“There is a growing literature following the citizen-candidate models of Osborne and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997) suggesting that identity matters for policy implementation (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Pande, 2003; Besley et al., 2011).”

“Pande 2003 suggests that the quotas increase targeted benefits to Scheduled castes (sc) and Scheduled tribes (st).”

“Prior work suggests that quota effects are largest where the targeted minority group constitutes a large share of the population (Chin and Prakash 2011; Das, Mukho-padhyay, and Saroy 2017; Jensenius 2015; Pande 2003).”

“Pande (2003) finds an increase in transfers targeted towards the disadvantaged groups due to political reservation mandated towards them.”

“We see two reasons for questioning the growing optimism about the remedial and transformative potential of the democratic process, whether on its own or aided by political reservations ðe.g., Pande 2003Þ.”

“…Africa; political parties; ethnicity; gender; primary elections The social identities of elected politicians – such as their gender and ethnicity – affect who in society is favored with state resources and whose preferences are represented in government (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Pande 2003).”

“Pande (2003) finds that changing the political representation for the STs and SCs does impact policy choices, which is consistent with the fact that policy preferences differ across social groups, and that politicians act upon their preferences.”

“Most of the evidence to date comes from India where, in 1993, the government mandated the establishment of political representation quotas for women and other marginalised groups at various levels in local governments (Chattopadhyay & Duflo, 2004; Pande, 2003).”

“…public goods provision in developing countries, which identifies the role of community leader characteristics on public goods provision, e.g. caste (Pande, 2003), gender (Duflo and Chattopadhyay, 2004), and the wealth of elected legislators (Besley et al., 2005); (iv) a literature on fiscal…”

“…studies indicating that gender is an important indicator of policy preferences (e.g., Lott and Kenny, 1999; Edlund and Pande, 2002; Funk and Gathmann, 2008) and that female representation often significantly affects policy outcomes (e.g., Pande, 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Svaleryd, 2009).”

“India reserved up to one-fourth of the seats in the national and state legislatures for SC/ST members, and one-third of all positions of chief in village councils for women (Pande 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004).”

“…quotas for minority groups in order to ensure that their interests are reflected in policy making (Besley et al. 2004; Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Pande 2003); the introduction of service report cards (Bjorkman and Svensson 2009); the direct involvement of community members in school and health…”

“…Htun and Ossa 2013; Hughes 2011; Krook and O’Brien 2010); most research on electoral quota adoption concerns either quotas for women (e.g., Dahlerup 2006; Krook 2009; Meier 2004; Murray et al. 2012) or quotas for minorities (e.g., Bird 2014; Lublin and Wright 2013; Pande 2003; Reynolds 2005, 2011).”

“Politicians typically favor members of their own group identity, which has been proxied in the literature by gender (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004), castes and tribes (Pande, 2003), or ethnicity (Franck and Rainer, 2012).”

“…“discriminatory intentions” at the local level (Dunning and Nilekani 2013; Chauchard 2014) and electoral quotas increase pro-Dalit public spending (Pande 2003), the electoral success of Dalit-oriented parties may produce disappointing results unless they actually unleash a wave of descriptive…”

“In all models in Table 3, SC and ST MP political affiliation with the same political party as the central 94 Pande 2003; Chinn and Prakash 2011. government leads to significantly higher World Bank aid allocations.”

“…the downstream effects of quotas for SCs, this paper dvances a substantial literature on the efficacy of a common electoral institution—electoral quotas—for ethnic groups and for SCs, in particular (Chin and Prakash 2011; Dunning 2010; Dunning and Nilekani 2013; Jensenius 2015; Pande 2003).”

“Pande (2003) finds that in districts where seats are reserved for SC candidates, less is spent on education.”

“Political quotas exist at that state and national levels for members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; Pande (2003) and Krishnan (2007) examine the policy impact of these quotas. parliament, but it has not yet been voted on in the lower house, making the analysis in this paper highly…”

“…provisions (Bohlken, 2016), decentralization has translated both into enhanced capacity at the local level (Chattopadhyay & Dufflo, 2004; Pande, 2003) and a democratic deepening, particularly with the promotion of local democracy and the enforcement of quotas for traditionally…”

“While existing work has focused on the role of political representation (Besley & Burgess, 2002; Pande, 2003; Chattopadhyay & Duflo, 2004), there is limited work on the role of bureaucratic representation.”

“Specifically, researchers have focused on differences in political accountability (Besley and Burgess, 2002; Pande, 2003), labor market regulation (Besley and Burgess, 2004; Hasan, Mitra, and Ramaswamy, 2007; Dougherty, Robles, and Krishna, 2011), land reform (Besley and Burgess, 2000; Banerjee and…”

“Pande (2003) has shown that reserved seats in local government in India contribute to the increase in spending on minority employment and welfare programmes.”

“For example, Pande (2003) observes that ‘a basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making.’”

“Using state-level variation in India over four decades, Pande (2003) identifies how the mandated reservations of legislative positions for minority groups increased the redistribution of resources towards these groups, demonstrating enhanced policy influence.”

“For example, characteristics such as party (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006), race (Canon 1999; Whitby 1997), caste (Pande 2003), gender (Barnes 2016; Bratton and Haynie 1999; Swers 2002), education (Besley, Montalvo, and Reynal-Querol 2011; Diaz-Serrano and Pérez 2013; Efobi 2015; Yu and…”

“9 Pande 2003.”

“19 Although opponents of reservations argue that they have little impact on policy, there is a growing empirical record that demonstrates the opposite (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Pande 2003).”

“The citizen candidate models (Osborne & Slivinski, 1996; Besley & Coate, 1997) and their empirical applications (Levitt, 1996; Besley & Case, 2000; Pande, 2003; Chattopadhyay & Duflo, 2004) emphasize how the identity of the elected representative may affect policy implementation.”

“This line of models has been applied empirically (see, e.g. Pande 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Svaleryd 2009; Bhalotra and Clots-Figueras 2014).”

“…politicians’ types and characteristics matter for their voting decisions (Lott and Kenny, 1999; Washington, 2008), resulting policies (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Pande, 2003; Svaleryd, 2009) and, ultimately, for economic outcomes such as growth (Besley et al., 2011; Jones and Olken, 2005).”

“For example, Pande (2003) and Besley et al. (2004) show that politicians of high castes are less likely to support policies that help low castes.”

“Pande (2003) observes that ‘a basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making.”

“Some evidence suggests that group membership is most efficient in ensuring substantive representation (Pande, 2003; Summersby, 2009).”

“…quotas for minority groups in order to ensure that their interests are reflected in policy making (Besley et al. 2004; Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Pande 2003); the introduction of service report cards (Bjorkman and Svensson 2009); the direct involvement of community members in school and health…”