Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T16:29:13.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2020

SAAD GULZAR Open the ORCID record for SAAD GULZAR [Opens in a new window] ,
NICHOLAS HAAS Open the ORCID record for NICHOLAS HAAS [Opens in a new window]  and
BENJAMIN PASQUALE Open the ORCID record for BENJAMIN PASQUALE [Opens in a new window]
SAAD GULZAR*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
NICHOLAS HAAS*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University
BENJAMIN PASQUALE*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar
*
Saad Gulzar, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, gulzar@stanford.edu.
Nicholas Haas, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, nick.haas@ps.au.dk.
Benjamin Pasquale, Independent Scholar, bjpasquale@gmail.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does political affirmative action undermine or promote development? We present the first systematic analysis of Scheduled Areas in India, home to 100 million citizens, where local political office is reserved for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Tribes. A newly constructed dataset of 217,000 villages allows us to probe conflicting hypotheses on the implementation of the world’s largest workfare program, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. We find that reservations deliver no worse overall outcomes, that there are large gains for targeted minorities, and that these gains come at the cost of the relatively privileged, not other minorities. We also find improvements in other pro-poor programs, including a rural roads program and general public goods. Reservations more closely align benefits to each group’s population share, allaying concerns of overcompensation for inequalities. Contrary to the expectations of skeptics, results indicate that affirmative action can redistribute both political and economic power without hindering overall development.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 1230 - 1246
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Ingo Rohlfing and three anonymous reviewers at the APSR, Ramnarayan Bhagat, Rachel Brulé, Lauren Davenport, Miriam Golden, Justin Grimmer, Maira Hayat, Clément Imbert, Hakeem Jefferson, Francesca Jensenius, David Laitin, Stephane Lavertu, Daniel Masterson, Durgesh Pathak, Vijayendra Rao, Cyrus Samii, David Stasavage, Milan Vaishnav, Guo Xu, and seminar participants at Gothenburg, ISI Delhi, Lahore School of Economics, NYU, Wisconsin-Madison, MPSA, OSU, Oxford, and Uppsala for helpful comments. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BOWEJG.

References

Adida, Claire L., , Lauren D. Davenport, and McClendon, Gwyneth. 2016. “Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80 (4): 815–836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akerlof, George A., and , Rachel E. Kranton. 2010. Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AlJazeera. 2018. “Dalits in India Hold Protests against ‘Dilution’ of SC/ST Act.” AlJazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/dalits-india-hold-protests-dilution-scst-act-180402082213061.html.Google Scholar
Asher, Sam, and Novosad, Paul. 2019. “Socioeconomic High-Resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Dataset for India (SHRUG).” https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DPESAK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asher, Sam, and Novosad, Paul. 2020. “Rural Roads and Local Economic Development.” American Economic Review. 110 (3): 797–823Google Scholar
Beaman, Lori, Duflo, Esther, Pande, Rohini, and Topalova, Petia. 2010. “Political Reservation and Substantive Representation: Evidence from Indian Village Councils.” In India Policy Forum 2010/11 7: 159–191.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Marianne, Hanna, Rema, and Mullainathan, Sendhil. 2010. “Affirmative Action in Education: Evidence from Engineering College Admissions in India.” Journal of Public Economics 94 (1–2): 16–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy, Pande, Rohini, and Rao, Vijayendra. 2007. “Political Economy of Panchayats in South India.” Economic and Political Weekly 42 (8): 661–666.Google Scholar
Bhavnani, Rikhil R. 2009. “Do Electoral Quotas Work After They Are Withdrawn? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India.” American Political Science Review 103 (1): 23–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhavnani, Rikhil R., and Lee, Alexander. 2019. “Does Affirmative Action Worsen Bureaucratic Performance? Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service.” American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12497.Google Scholar
Broockman, David E. 2013. “Black Politicians Are More Intrinsically Motivated to Advance Blacks Interests: A Field Experiment Manipulating Political Incentives.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (3): 521–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassan, Guilhem, and Vandewalle, Lore. 2017. “Identities and Public Policies: Unintended Effects of Political Reservations for Women in India.” IHEID Working Papers 18-2017.Google Scholar
Chin, Aimee, and Prakash, Nishith. 2011. “The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India.” Journal of Development Economics 96 (2): 265–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conley, Timothy G. 1999. “GMM Estimation with Cross Sectional Dependence.” Journal of Econometrics 92 (1): 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbridge, Stuart. 2002. “The Continuing Struggle for India’s Jharkhand: Democracy, Decentralisation and the Politics of Names and Numbers.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 40 (3): 55–71.Google Scholar
Das, Sabyasachi, Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop, and Saroy, Rajas. 2017. “Efficiency Consequences of Affirmative Action in Politics: Evidence from India.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 11093.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, Aditya, and Kapur, Devesh. Forthcoming. “The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Effectiveness: Evidence from Local Rural Development Officials in India.” American Political Science Review.Google Scholar
Dell, Melissa 2010. “The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita.” Econometrica 78 (6): 1863–1903.Google Scholar
Deshpande, Ashwini, and , Thomas E. Weisskopf. 2014. “Does Affirmative Action Reduce Productivity? A Case Study of the Indian Railways.” World Development 64: 169–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duflo, Esther, and Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra. 2004. “Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India.” Econometrica 72 (5): 1409–1443.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad, and Nilekani, Janhavi. 2013. “Ethnic Quotas and Political Mobilization: Caste, Parties, and Distribution in Indian Village Councils.” American Political Science Review 107 (1): 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutta, Puja, Murgai, Rinku, Ravallion, Martin, and van de Walle, Dominque. 2014. Right to Work: Assessing India’s Employment Guarantee Scheme in Bihar. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gille, Veronique. 2013. “Stigma in Positive Discrimination Application? Evidence from Quotas in Education in India.” Conference Paper, Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne.Google Scholar
Gille, Veronique. 2018. “Applying for Social Programs in India: Roles of Local Politics and Caste Networks in Affirmative Action.” Journal of Comparative Economics 46 (2): 436–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girard, Victoire. 2018. “Don’t Touch My Road. Evidence from India on Affirmative Action and Everyday Discrimination.” World Development 103: 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulzar, Saad, and Pasquale, Benjamin J.. 2017. “Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Development: Evidence from India.” American Political Science Review 111 (1): 162–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ILO (International Labour Organization). 2015. “ILO-PMGSY Rural Road Project Strengthening Capacity of Panchayati Raj Institutions: Managing Maintenance of Rural Roads.” http://pmgsy.nic.in/RSCPR.pdf.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Rishi. 2015. “Riots Break Out in India over a Dominant Caste’s Attempt to Gain ‘Backward’ Status.” Time. https://time.com/4011001/hardik-patel-/.Google Scholar
Iyer, Lakshmi, and Mani, Anandi. 2012. “Travelling Agents: Change and Bureaucratic Turnover in India.” Review of Economics and Statistics 94 (3): 723–739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Rob, and Manor, James. 2017. Politics and the Right to Work: India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensenius, Francesca R. 2012. “Political Quotas in India: Perceptions of Constituent Political Representation.” Asian Survey 52 (2): 373–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensenius, Francesca R. 2015. “Development from Representation? A Study of Quotas for the Scheduled Castes in India.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7 (3): 196–220.Google Scholar
Jensenius, Francesca R. 2017. Social Justice through Inclusion: The Consequences of Electoral Quotas in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapur, Devesh, and Nangia, Prakirti. 2015. “Social Protection in India: A Welfare State sans Public Goods?” India Review 14 (1): 73–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufmann, Karen M. 2003. “Cracks in the Rainbow: Group Commonality as a Basis for Latino and African-American Political Coalitions.” Political Research Quarterly 56 (2): 199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khosla, Rishabh. 2011. “Caste, Politics and Public Good Distribution in India: Evidence from NREGS in Andhra Pradesh.” Economic and Political Weekly 46 (12): 63–69.Google Scholar
Krook, Mona Lena, and Zetterberg, Par. 2014. “Electoral Quotas and Political Representation: Comparative Perspectives.” International Political Science Review 35 (1): 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maiorano, Diego. 2014. “The Politics of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Andhra Pradesh.” World Development 58: 95–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcesse, Thibaud. 2017. “Patronage Guaranteed? Public Policy Reform, Patronage and Party–Building in Rural India.” Working Paper.Google Scholar
Marcesse, Thibaud. 2018. “Public Policy Reform and Informal Institutions: The Political Articulation of the Demand for Work in Rural India.” World Development 103: 284–296.Google Scholar
Meier, Kenneth J., McClain, Paula D., Polinard, Jerry L., and Wrinkle, Robert D.. 2004. “Divided or Together? Conflict and Cooperation between African Americans and Latinos.” Political Research Quarterly 57 (3): 399–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moffitt, Robert. 1983. “An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma.” American Economic Review 73 (5): 1023–35.Google Scholar
Munshi, Kaivan, and Rosenzweig, Mark. 2015. “Insiders and Outsiders: Local Ethnic Politics and Public Goods Provision.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 21720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palaniswamy, Nethra, and Krishnan, Nandini. 2012. “Local Politics, Political Institutions, and Public Resource Allocation.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 60 (3): 449–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pande, Rohini. 2003. “Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India.” American Economic Review 93 (4): 1132–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, Prerna. 2015. How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sukhtankar, Sandip. 2017. “India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: What Do We Really Know about the World’s Largest Workfare Program?” Brookings-NCAER India Policy Forum 13:231–286.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Gulzar et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BOWEJG
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Gulzar et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Gulzar et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 6.3 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.