British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Thursday 5 October 5 2006

ABSTRACT

Strategic voting and ethnic politics in India
Kanchan Chandra (NYU)

The presumption in the theoretical literature on ethnic mobilization is that voting for ethnic parties is a purely expressive act, not subject to cost-benefit calculations. Models of strategic voting, meanwhile, developed and applied mainly within post-industrial societies, typically make no reference to the ethnic identity of voters and parties. This article develops an argument that predicts high levels of strategic voting for ethnic parties in 'patronage democracies' such as India. The argument is investigated against the case of the Scheduled Castes in India using a combination of ethnographic and quantitative data.

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