Zaad Mahmood "Determinants of electoral turnout in India" 17 November 2015
Channel: Electoral Integrity Project
Date: 17/11/2015

Download the abstract at: http://bit.ly/1j4wMxc
--------------------------------

Democracy in India is often considered an post colonial outlier due to the stability of democratic order and high electoral participation, and despite challenging socio-political realities -- such as large-scale illiteracy, poverty, ethnic heterogeneity and backwardness -- characteristics that lower political participation. Despite the enormous attention to Indian politics, there has been little quantitative large-scale analysis on the determinants of electoral turnout.

This paper contributes to the literature on determinants of electoral turnout in India through an original constituency level analysis. In line with the existing study of Diwakar (2008) and Kondo (2003) I find that size of electors, extent of urbanisation and margin of political competition negatively affect turnout while literacy has a positive effect on turnout. Going beyond these oft-stated variables, I also find strong evidence that share of schedule caste population, economic inequality, and nature of party competition drive electoral turnout in India.

The outcome corroborates the sociological and micro studies of elections that claim social heterogeneity especially caste and region, share of rural population and partisan competition are the key driver of political participation in India. Interestingly the effect of social heterogeneity on electoral turnout is strongly induced by the nature of party competition. Through the incorporation of new variables the paper develops on the existing literature by providing a theoretically and methodologically coherent model of electoral turnout in India.


Chair:  Ferran Martínez i Coma (University of Sydney)

--------------------------------
The Electoral Integrity Project is an independent research team based at the University of Sydney and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It explores many issues, focusing upon three main questions: 

- When do elections meet international standards of electoral integrity? 
- What happens when elections fail to do so? 
- And what can be done to mitigate these problems? 

For more information see: www.electoralintegrityproject.com