When Does Electoral Cooperation End? Theory and Evidence from India

• In Event: Challenges in Developing Party Systems

Abstract

In countries around the world, parties form pre-election alliances in an effort to defeat common adversaries. Some of these alliances endure for years, such as the CDU-CSU alliance in Germany or UMNO’s alliance with Chinese and Indian parties in Malaysia. Under what conditions does such longstanding electoral cooperation end? This question matters because the demise of such alliances can profoundly affect the erstwhile allies’ ability to win subsequent elections. Whereas prior research has emphasized how policy disagreements and ideological differences undermine electoral cooperation, even among longstanding allies, we propose an alternative explanation. When the (perceived) electoral fortunes of one of the allied parties dramatically improve or deteriorate, the probability of alliance termination should increase dramatically. A noticeable change in a parties’ electoral success prompts the newly advantaged partner to push for a renegotiation of the terms of the alliance, while the newly disadvantaged partner is particularly unlikely to agree to such changes. As a consequence, perceived changes in the partners’ relative electoral success represents an especially likely juncture at which cooperation will end. We examine this argument in the context of India, where election alliances are widespread and highly consequential in shaping electoral outcomes. Empirically, we focus on the western Indian state of Maharashtra and the end of two longstanding alliances ahead of the 2014 election for the state government. We then compare these to cases in the southern state of Kerala, where two longstanding alliances have persisted for decades. These comparisons highlight the importance of the stability of each partner’s perceived electoral success.

Authors

• Adam W. Ziegfeld, Temple University

• Dyuti Saunik, University of Virginia