The Relative Importance of Descriptive Representation in Indian Cabinets

• In Event: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics & Public Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics

Abstract

Recent populist initiatives worldwide have prioritized increasing the diversity of executive appointments. Some country leaders are trying to incorporate relative gender, ethnicity, and class balance into their cabinets with the hope that both descriptive and substantive representation will increase for marginalized groups. How do country leaders weigh the importance of these appointments when compared to other priorities such as partisan alignment?

We examine this question by looking at how descriptive representation changes when constraints are placed on cabinet size. Cabinet size restrictions force leaders with previously large cabinets to eliminate certain ministers in favor of others. This provides leverage to study how leaders weigh the importance of descriptive representation versus other priorities. We use a 2003 Indian constitutional amendment restricting the size of sub-national cabinets as an exogenous shock, and we code caste composition in states both impacted and not impacted by cabinet size restrictions before and after the 2003 amendment. Some state leaders do seem to systematically remove marginalized castes after cabinet size restrictions are put in place. Our findings contribute to the literature on representative governments by describing how institutional constraints may differentially impact marginalized groups.

Authors

• William O'Brochta, Washington University in St. Louis

• Sunita A. Parikh, Washington University in St. Louis