Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India

Thachil, Tariq

doi:10.1017/s0043887111000116

Cited by 69 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Local Islamic rulers who operate in countries with secular authoritarian central governments provide good local services and empower the marginalized poor and pious because in doing so they seek to "incrementally displace the state and traditional elites" (Blaydes 2014, p. 503). Nonstate service provision at the local level can be also seen as an electoral strategy that helps in winning further votes (Thachil 2011). This interpretation fits the track record of the AK Parti, too.…”

Section: Hypotheses and Mechanismssupporting

confidence: 63%

Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Aksoy

Billari

2018

American Journal of Sociology

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The plethora of pathways leading to family formation decisions has made the causal assessment of the influence of politics and religion on marriage and fertility difficult. The authors exploit the unique opportunity offered by the emergence of a new political party in Turkey, and the electoral features of the country's majoritarian system, to estimate the effect of politics and religion on marriage and fertility. The AK Parti (Justice and Development Party), with an explicitly Islamist platform, won Turkish elections in 2002, taking both a pro-natalist and pro-family stance, with increasing welfare expenditures and an explicit neoliberal agenda on macroeconomic issues. The authors analyze the results of the 2004 local elections using a regression discontinuity design and show that fertility and marriage rates have been significantly higher in districts where the AK Parti won. They argue that increased local welfare provision is the main explanatory mechanism, also discussing other alternative and complementary mechanisms.Marriage and fertility are crucial ingredients of social reproduction. Not surprisingly, therefore, they have long occupied a central role in political discourse and have at times become the direct aim of political action through 1 This article benefited from comments at the

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Section: Hypotheses and Mechanismssupporting

confidence: 63%

Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Aksoy

Billari

2018

American Journal of Sociology

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“…as i have shown, senegalese local elites have much more social clout than their counterparts in many other african states, such as Benin. such leaders could thus act as credible intermediaries between politicians and voters, enabling politicians w o r l d p o lI t I c s 182 Krishna 2011;thachil 2011. to reach voters outside their own ethnic group and to create ethnically and religiously diverse electoral bases.…”

Section: Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

King Makers: Local Leaders and Ethnic Politics in Africa

Koter¹

2013

World Pol.

234

117

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Much of the literature on electoral politics in Africa has focused on one mechanism of electoral mobilization: reliance on shared ethnic identity between politicians and voters. On the contrary, the author argues that politicians pursue two distinct modes of nonprogrammatic electoral mobilization: (1) by directly relying on the support of voters from one's own ethnic background, and (2) by indirectly working through electoral intermediaries—local leaders who command moral authority, control resources, and can influence the electoral behavior of their dependents. Yet the power of local leaders varies greatly; hence the option to use electoral intermediaries is not available in all settings. The choice of electoral mobilization affects national electoral outcomes: by severing the direct link between politicians and voters, intermediaries reduce a campaign's reliance on shared identity and create cross-ethnic electorates. The evidence for this argument is based on original interviews with political leaders collected during fieldwork in Senegal and Benin during the 2006–7 electoral season, media coverage of elections, and a historical analysis of first mass elections in the 1950s.

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“…For example, Dixit, Grossman, and Gul (2000), building on Alesina (1988), construct an infinite-horizon model in which two groups rotate in power according to some fixed exogenous probability, and they characterize the set of efficient allocation rules that arise in equilibrium. 56 See Thachil (2011) for an explanation of the BJP's successes (and failures) in wooing ST and SC voters. Such dynamics might reduce variation in caste-or tribe-based targeting across electoral terms in which quotas are present or absent-because the randomized application of reservation corresponds well to the exogenous process described in Dixit, Grossman, and Gul's (2000) model.…”

Section: Partisan Targeting In Multi-caste Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2013

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E thnic 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.

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Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India

Abstract: e m b e d d e d m o b I lI z at I o n 435 2Harik 1996 provides a rare example of a survey conducted to examine the basis of support for a religious party (Hezbollah in Lebanon) but does not look at service provision specifically.

Cited by 69 publications

References 43 publications

Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

King Makers: Local Leaders and Ethnic Politics in Africa

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

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