Existing scholarship in comparative politics has either focused on regionalism or on political and economic decentralisation to explain the growth of regional parties. Using quantitative evidence from India, I show that a hitherto ignored explanation, the level of regional branch autonomy within polity-wide parties, also has a significant impact on the growth of regional parties. When regional branches of polity-wide parties have autonomy, regional parties find it difficult to grow. In contrast, regional parties benefit electorally when regional branches of polity-wide parties are less autonomous. To further account for endogeneity between regional party growth and regional branch autonomy, I use quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that the growth of regional parties is not positively correlated with more regional branch autonomy.
Book Reviews
255Studies in Indian Politics, 2, 2 (2014): 243-257 depth of analysis and description in a period when CPI(M) is losing its hold over the state. But it would be a shame if the readership were limited to scholars of West Bengal, for whom it should be required reading. This book reminds us that in an era where decentralization of power is often associated with democratization, there is still often work to be done in terms of preventing party and elite capture of local institutions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.