Ethnic Inequality, Strong Parties, and Electoral Stability

• In Event: Ethnicity and Nationalism

Abstract

Many developing democracies are ridden by high levels of electoral instability, while others seem remarkably stable. In this paper we focus on how social cleavage structures can explain some of this electoral variation in multi-ethnic societies. We argue that when economic and ethnic cleavages are overlapping, i.e. when some ethnic groups are wealthy and others are poor, ethnicity is more likely to be salient in politics, leading to more stable party-voter linkages. With higher ethnic inequality, we should also expect more stable party-candidate linkages, as parties are unlikely to accept non-coethnic candidates into their ranks and candidates in turn are less likely to switch to other parties. The result is less factional politics, more stable party-candidate alliances, and lower electoral instability. We show evidence for this using data on state legislative elections in India. Drawing on data on consumption and occupational status to measure ethnic inequality, we find that where inequality is greater there is lower electoral volatility. Further, using a newly developed dataset on party-switching, we demonstrate that greater ethnic inequality is associated with more stable party-candidate linkages. Together these findings suggest that overlapping cleavages of ethnicity and class shape both voting behavior and the institutional development of parties, and thereby also the electoral stability of democracies. 

Authors

• Neeraj Vimal Prasad, University of Amsterdam

• Pavithra Suryanarayan, Johns Hopkins University

• Francesca R. Jensenius, University of Oslo