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Is partisan alignment electorally rewarding? Evidence from village council elections in India

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  • Subhasish Dey
  • Kunal Sen

Abstract

Do ruling parties positively discriminate in favour of their own constituencies in allocating public resources? If they do, do they gain electorally in engaging in such a practice? This paper tests whether partisan alignment exists in the allocation of funds for India's largest social protection programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the state of West Bengal, and whether incumbent local governments (village councils) gain electorally in the practice of partisan alignment. Using a quasi-experimental research design, we find that the village council-level ruling party spends significantly more in its own party constituencies than in opponent constituencies. We also find strong evidence of electoral rewards in the practice of partisan alignment. However, we find that the results differ between the two main ruling political parties at the village council level in the state.

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  • Subhasish Dey & Kunal Sen, 2016. "Is partisan alignment electorally rewarding? Evidence from village council elections in India," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-063-16, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:esid-063-16
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    Cited by:

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    2. Pushkar Maitra & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Sujata Visaria, 2020. "Decentralized Targeting of Agricultural Credit Programs: Private versus Political Intermediaries," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2020-70, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Jan 2020.
    3. Ritika Jain, 2018. "Contributions to the exchequer funds by state level public sector enterprises: does political alignment matter?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 93-113, March.
    4. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2023. "Political clientelism and capture: theory and an application," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 17-34, July.
    5. Das, Ritanjan & Dey, Subhasish & Neogi, Ranjita, 2021. "Across the stolen Ponds: The political geography of social welfare in rural eastern India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    6. Mookherjee, Dilip & Nath, Anusha, 2023. "Clientelistic politics and pro-poor targeting: Rules versus discretionary budgets," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    7. Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía & Iván Higuera-Mendieta, 2017. "Political Alignment in the Time of Weak Parties: Electoral Advantages and Subnational Transfers in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 15746, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    8. Mahadevan, Meera & Shenoy, Ajay, 2023. "The political consequences of resource scarcity: Targeted spending in a water-stressed democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    9. Anindya Bhattacharya & Anirban Kar & Alita Nandi, 2016. "Local Institutional Structure and Clientelistic Access to Employment: The Case of MGNREGS in Three States of India," Working Papers id:11549, eSocialSciences.
    10. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2018. "Resource Transfers to Local Governments: Political Manipulation and Household Responses in West Bengal," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-319, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    11. Savu, A., 2021. "Reverse Political Coattails under a Technocratic Government: New Evidence on the National Electoral Benefits of Local Party Incumbency," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2121, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Shenoy, Ajay & Zimmermann, Laura V., 2021. "The Workforce of Clientelism: The Case of Local Officials in the Party Machine," GLO Discussion Paper Series 916, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    13. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2020. "How Do Voters Respond to Welfare vis-à-vis Public Good Programs? An Empirical Test for Clientelism," Staff Report 605, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    14. Miguel Ángel Borrella-Mas & Martin Rode, 2021. "Love is blind: partisan alignment and political corruption in Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 423-451, September.
    15. Anindya Bhattacharya & Anirban Kar & Alita Nandi, 2023. "Asymmetric networks, clientelism and their impacts: households' access to workfare employment in rural India," Papers 2304.04236, arXiv.org.
    16. Ali, Amin Masud & Savoia, Antonio, 2023. "Decentralisation or patronage: What determines government's allocation of development spending in a unitary country? Evidence from Bangladesh," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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