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"Ziegfeld, Adam"
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Why regional parties? : clientelism, elites, and the Indian party system
\"Today, regional parties in India win nearly as many votes as national parties. In Why Regional Parties?, Professor Adam Ziegfeld questions the conventional wisdom that regional parties in India are electorally successful because they harness popular grievances and benefit from strong regional identities. He draws on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative evidence from over eighteen months of field research to demonstrate that regional parties are, in actuality, successful because they represent expedient options for office-seeking politicians. By focusing on clientelism, coalition government, and state-level factional alignments, Ziegfeld explains why politicians in India find membership in a regional party appealing. He therefore accounts for the remarkable success of India's regional parties and, in doing so, outlines how party systems take root and evolve in democracies where patronage, vote buying, and machine politics are common\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Authoritarian Origins of Dominant Parties in Democracies: Opposition Fragmentation and Asymmetric Competition in India
What explains the electoral dominance of a single party over a prolonged period of time in a democracy? Focusing on the case of India’s former dominant party, the Indian National Congress, this article argues that authoritarian-era politics can influence the likelihood of single-party dominance after democratization. More specifically, the axes of political contestation in the authoritarian era interact with the process of democratization to shape democratic-era party systems. When the authoritarian era’s primary socio-political division becomes irrelevant because the democratization process roundly discredits one side of the division, the resulting party system in the democratic period is likely to feature a single major party and a host of small, disorganized, and inexperienced parties. Such asymmetric party competition is particularly likely to produce a dominant party. This explanation not only accounts for the fragmented nature of the opposition in early post-independence India, which was central to sustaining single-party dominance, but it can also potentially shed light on single-party dominance (or its absence) elsewhere in the world.
Journal Article
Varieties of Electoral Dominance
Dominant political parties rule for prolonged periods of time by winning successive multiparty elections. However, the term “dominant party” encompasses an extremely diverse set of parties, ranging from ones winning unremarkable vote shares in established democracies to those garnering massive popular majorities in free but unfair elections. To grapple with such heterogeneity, this article proposes a three-part typology based on the foundations of a party’s electoral dominance—whether extremely high votes shares, steadfast support from legislative allies, or a favorable translation of votes into seats or office. These three types are internally homogenous but distinct from one another in ways predicted by the typology. The puzzles posed by each dominant-party type and the kinds of answers required to address those puzzles differ markedly.
Journal Article
Varieties of Electoral Dominance
Dominant political parties rule for prolonged periods of time by winning successive multiparty elections. However, the term \"dominant party\" encompasses an extremely diverse set of parties, ranging from ones winning unremarkable vote shares in established democracies to those garnering massive popular majorities in free but unfair elections. To grapple with such heterogeneity, this article proposes a three-part typology based on the foundations of a party's electoral dominance-whether extremely high votes shares, steadfast support from legislative allies, or a favorable translation of votes into seats or office. These three types are internally homogenous but distinct from one another in ways predicted by the typology. The puzzles posed by each dominant-party type and the kinds of answers required to address those puzzles differ markedly.
Journal Article
Why So Little Strategic Voting in India?
Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger’s Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world’s most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger’s Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show that the vast majority of respondents believe that their preferred party is likely to win in their constituency. For most voters, their partisan preferences overwhelmingly predict their beliefs about which party will win. Their election forecasts correspond to objective electoral outcomes only with respect to parties that they like less.
Journal Article
Socioeconomic status and corruption perceptions around the world
Why do citizens vary in their perceptions about the frequency of corruption? We hypothesize that those most harmed by corruption—the socioeconomically disadvantaged—should perceive corruption to be more frequent. Using multiple cross-national surveys, we find that the poor and the uneducated tend to perceive higher levels of corruption than the wealthy and the well educated. However, this relationship only holds in countries at high levels of economic development. In poorer countries, the statistical relationship is much weaker and sometimes runs in the opposite direction.
Journal Article
Coalition Government and Party System Change: Explaining the Rise of Regional Political Parties in India
Why do party systems in longstanding democracies sometimes experience sudden change? Neither sociological nor institutional explanations can account for the swift increase in support for regional political parties in India in the 1990s. Instead, the shift from single-party majority
to coalition government explains the rise of regional parties. The advent of coalition government increased the incentives associated with joining and establishing regional parties, prompting many already popular politicians to leave their national parties and take their supporters with them
as they formed new regional parties in the 1990s. This finding reverses the causal arrow that usually links party systems and coalition government and illustrates how noninstitutional elements of the political context can determine elite incentives and thereby shape party systems.
Journal Article
Social Cleavages, Party Organization, and the End of Single-Party Dominance: Insights from India
When do electorally dominant parties lose power in democracies? Drawing on the experiences of India's states during the period of Indian National Congress dominance, we argue that single-party dominance is less likely to endure under two conditions: first, when one of the opposition
parties possesses a longstanding and robust party organization and, second, when there is a single social cleavage dividing the political class into two main cleavage groups. Both conditions contribute to the demise of a dominant party system by encouraging a previously fragmented opposition
to consolidate behind one large party capable of challenging the dominant party. We provide support for our argument with evidence from across India's states and with more in-depth case studies of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh.
Journal Article
Electoral Volatility and Turnout
High levels of electoral volatility are common in new and developing-world democracies. In this article, we examine the implications of electoral volatility—more specifically, party entry and exit—on voter turnout. We hypothesize that new party entry should be associated with increases in turnout, as new parties mobilize previously apathetic voters through new party organizations and networks of canvassers. Further, we hypothesize that existing party exit should be associated with decreases in turnout as parties’ mobilization networks become dormant and cease contacting certain voters. We test these hypotheses on data from national elections in India from 1977 through 2004. Regression analysis using district-level fixed effects reveals consistent evidence in favor of our hypotheses. Furthermore, we find evidence suggesting that mobilization is, indeed, the link between party entry and exit and aggregate-level turnout.
Journal Article