In this article, we use data from the 2019 NES post-poll survey to assess the impact of BJP’s welfare schemes on voting behaviour. We demonstrate that compared to earlier elections, voters are more likely to give credit to the central government as opposed to state governments or local politicians for welfare schemes. This centralization is especially the case for some of the BJP’s new welfare programmes such as Ujjwala and the Jan Dhan Yojana. However, even earlier Congress-era schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Awas Yojana are now more associated with the central government. Schemes such as the Public Distribution System (PDS) and Old Age Pensions are still more likely to be associated with state governments. At the all-India level, we find some evidence that voters who received benefits under Ujjwala, Jan Dhan Yojana or Awas Yojana schemes were more likely to vote for the BJP, whereas recipients of pensions or MGNREGA were less likely to support the BJP.

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Rather than looking at coalition formation as a single-shot game, this article attempts a more dynamic analysis by exploring the interactive processes between different experiments over time. Comparing coalition experiments since 1996, it finds that there is an inbuilt tension in the nature of the coalition formations in India. India's federalized party system created a distinctive coalition formation pattern in which territory played a significant part. Its coalitions primarily involved the coming together of two types of parties, polity-wide and single-state parties. The organizational logic of the two categories of parties is different and consequently the incentives that drive them vary. While their coming together in a coalition does help fulfil some 'mutual needs' there is also an element of competition about issues including how much and whose needs are being fulfilled. While polity-wide parties would prefer to govern alone or have a system in which the role of the coalitionable is negligible, this article argues that the combined effect of both federalization of the party system and an institutionalization of a coalitional system has decreased the possibility of single-party governments in the short run. The article also notes that incongruent majorities in the two houses, the need to get policy passed and the changing composition of the Rajya Sabha during the tenure of the Lok Sabha will encourage the formation of large coalitions and/or surplus coalitions.

This article examines the role of India's states in shaping the implementation and framing of social policy within India's federal system. Since the 2000s, the central government has overseen a substantial expansion of social welfare policies partly through a new push towards rights-based social provision. Most of the existing literature on the shift in social welfare coverage focuses on the national level. Yet, as we demonstrate in this article, it is India's states that are both responsible for an increasing proportion of total public expenditure on social welfare provision as well as determining the nature and effectiveness of that provision across space. In addition to being the level of implementation for centrally designed programs, some states have themselves innovated by designing new social welfare programs, expanding national schemes or improving the capacity of the local state to effectively implement programs in more rule-bound ways that are less subject to local political intermediation. Factors internal to political competition within states also impact the ways in which relationships between states and markets have been altered in the course of implementing a new generation of welfare programs. Drawing on a comparative research programme across pairs of Indian states, we identify three critical factors in explaining how state-level political environments shape social policy: the role of policy legacies in shaping policy frames; the role of social coalitions underpinning political party competition; and the role of political leaders in strengthening state capacity to achieve program goals. 2 States as Laboratories: The Politics of Social Welfare Policies in India Rajeshwari Deshpande, KK Kailash and Louise TillinThis article examines the role of India's states in shaping the implementation and framing of social policy within India's federal system. Since the 2000s, the central government has overseen a substantial expansion of social welfare policies partly through a new push towards rights-based social provision. Most of the existing literature on the shift in social welfare coverage focuses on the national level. Yet, as we demonstrate in this article, it is India's states that are both responsible for an increasing proportion of total public expenditure on social welfare provision as well as determining the nature and effectiveness of that provision across space. In addition to being the level of implementation for centrally designed programs, some states have themselves innovated by designing new social welfare programs, expanding national schemes or improving the capacity of the local state to effectively implement programs in more rule-bound ways that are less subject to local political intermediation. Factors internal to political competition within states also impact the ways in which relationships between states and markets have been altered in the course of implementing a new generation of welfare programs. Drawing on a comparative research programme across pairs of Indian states,...

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