Independent Candidates and Political Representation in India

Abstract

We estimate the causal effect of independent candidates on voter turnout and election outcomes in India. To do this, we exploit exogenous changes in the entry deposit candidates pay for their participation in the political process, changes that disproportionately excluded candidates with no affiliation to established political parties. A one standard deviation increase in the number of independent candidates increases voter turnout by more than 6 percentage points, as some voters choose to vote rather than stay home. The vote share of independent candidates increases by more than 10 percentage points, as some existing voters switch who they vote for. Thus, independents allow winning candidates to win with less vote share, decrease the probability of electing a candidate from the governing coalition by about 31 percentage points, and ultimately increase the probability of electing an ethnic-party candidate. Altogether, the results imply that the price of participation by independents is constituency representation in government.

On the Structure of the Political Party System in Indian States, 1957 - 2018

“…The significance of anti-defection legislation on party numbers but not ENP is strongly supportive of the hypothesis that this law was successful in increasing electoral consistency and candidate accountability by reducing party defections but at the cost of proliferating the number of smaller parties. Finally, unlike the results found for political candidates by both Bhattacharya and Mitra (2014) and Kapoor and Magesan (2018), the more than tenfold increase in the candidate deposit fee in 1996 does not appear to have had any significant long run effect in decreasing either the number of parties or ENP.…”

“…See alsoTaagepera and Grofman (1985),Hug (2000),Clark and Golder (2006),Spoon and West (2015),Kapoor and Magesan (2018), and Ferris and Voia (2020) who highlight scale and diversity.13 See Jaffrelot (2012) on caste alliances with political parties in India andChurch (1984) andHarriss (1999) for a discussion of the caste and class centric politics of Indian states.…”

On the structure of the political party system in Indian states, 1957–2018

“…9 See Forand and Maheshri (2015) and Ferris, Olmstead and Winer (2018) for an analysis of how this cost differential implies an asymmetric short run adjustment process about a longer run equilibrium. 10 See, for example, Taagepera and Grofman (1985), Hug (2000), Clark and Golder (2006), Spoon and West (2015), Kapoor andMagesan (2018), andVoia (2020).…”

¿Dónde surgen los independientes? Sesgo de participación en las elecciones mexicanas

“…En la literatura se ha argumentado que las candidaturas independientes pueden mejorar el funcionamiento de la democracia en dos sentidos: i) rompen con el monopolio de la representación política ostentado por los partidos políticos y generan alternativas para intereses no representados (Kapoor & Magesan, 2018;Aguirre et al, 2017;Reveles, 2017;Copus et al, 2009), y ii) facilitan el ejercicio de los derechos políticos de los ciudadanos (Hernández, 2012;Campos, 2014).…”

“…Así pues, los independientes contribuirían a la legitimidad del régimen al proveer opciones para ciudadanos que se sienten alienados del sistema. El efecto de estas candidaturas sobre la participación electoral ha sido analizado empíricamente por Kapoor & Magesan (2018), en el caso de la India, y encontraron una relación positiva entre ambas variables.…”