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

Abstract

A basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making. However, policies enacted by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect the interests of disadvantaged minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of political reservation, as practiced in Indian states, to examine the role of mandated political representation in providing disadvantaged groups influence over policy-making. I find that political reservation has increased transfers to groups which benefit from the mandate. This finding also suggests that complete policy commitment may be absent in democracies, as is found in this case. (JEL D72, D78, H11, H50)

Economic and Political Foundations of Local Tax Structures: An Empirical Investigation of the Tax Mix of Flemish Municipalities

“…Such significant effect of female representation on the local tax mix supports previous work illustrating its effects on the composition of public spending (e.g., Pande, 2003;Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004;Svaleryd, 2009).…”

“…Finally, the share of women in the executive body of the municipality is included. This follows a number of recent 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). All previous work on this issue, however, looks at the effect of female representation on the size of the public sector or the composition of public spending.…”

Choosing Electoral Rules: Theory and Evidence from US Cities

“…For a discussion of electoral rules and racial politics in elections in India see Pande (2003). 11 We refer to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section for further details and reference for this section.…”

Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor

“…When aid is used to support public infrastructure investment (transportation and communications), however, the opposite is true: governments are likely to maintain their own fiscal effort in the provision of these goods. Foster and Rosenzweig (2001) and Pande (2003) have shown that when disadvantaged groups in India-the landless poor and scheduled castes (respectively)-were newly able to elect their own representatives, more government resources flowed towards these disadvantaged groups. However, these increased flows largely took the form of increased access to government jobs and targeted welfare transfers.…”