IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/46069.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic Entry and the Relationship between Number of Independent and Non-Independent Candidates: A Study of Parliamentary Elections in India

Author

Listed:
  • Bhattacharya, Kaushik

Abstract

The paper attempts to examine the nature and the extent of strategic entries of independent candidates in elections following FPTP rule. The paper observes that besides individual incentives of the candidates, a major factor behind the emergence of independents under FPTP systems could be the surreptitious strategic floating of such candidates by major political parties. Accordingly, the paper proposes to use the number of non-independent candidates in a constituency as a readily observable ex ante proxy for political fragmentation and hypothesizes a strong functional relationship between non-independent and independent candidates. Empirical results for all parliamentary elections in India since 1962 reveal that during the first four elections in our reference period (e.g., during 1962—1977), the relationship was weak, as many independent candidates during this period were regional feudal satraps who either participated in elections with Congress support or posed the only challenge to Congress in their locality. However, political fragmentation and bitter fight among political parties in India during the 1980s gave birth to a new class of independents whose entries into the elections were primarily strategic in nature, leading to a strong relationship between the above two variables during this period.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhattacharya, Kaushik, 2011. "Strategic Entry and the Relationship between Number of Independent and Non-Independent Candidates: A Study of Parliamentary Elections in India," MPRA Paper 46069, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:46069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/46069/1/MPRA_paper_46069.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dutta, Bhaskar & Jackson, Matthew O & Le Breton, Michel, 2001. "Strategic Candidacy and Voting Procedures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1013-1037, July.
    2. Hausman, Jerry & Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi, 1984. "Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 909-938, July.
    3. Alvarez, R. Michael & Nagler, Jonathan & Bowler, Shaun, 2000. "Issues, Economics, and the Dynamics of Multiparty Elections: The British 1987 General Election," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 131-149, March.
    4. Martin J. Osborne, 1995. "Spatial Models of Political Competition under Plurality Rule: A Survey of Some Explanations of the Number of Candidates and the Positions They Take," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 261-301, May.
    5. Elisabeth R. Gerber & Jeffrey B. Lewis, 2004. "Beyond the Median: Voter Preferences, District Heterogeneity, and Political Representation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1364-1383, December.
    6. Holbrook, Thomas M. & Van Dunk, Emily, 1993. "Electoral Competition in the American States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 955-962, December.
    7. Jac C. Heckelman & Andrew J. Yates, 2008. "Senate Elections With Independent Candidates," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 31-46, January.
    8. Stratmann, Thomas, 2005. "Ballot access restrictions and candidate entry in elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 59-71, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Damien Bol & Arnaud Dellis & Mandar oak, 2015. "Endogenous Candidacy in Electoral Competition: A Survey," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2015-19, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    2. Kaushik, Bhattacharya & Subrata K, Mitra, 2013. "Hyper-Plurality of Candidates, Effectiveness of Democratic Representation and Regulation of Candidate Entry in India," MPRA Paper 46024, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Michael J. Ensley & Michael W. Tofias & Scott De Marchi, 2009. "District Complexity as an Advantage in Congressional Elections," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 990-1005, October.
    4. Bhattacharya, Kaushik & Mitra, Subrata, 2012. "More can be Less: Hyper Plurality of Candidates, the Rationality of Electoral Choice and Need for Electoral Reform in India," MPRA Paper 42549, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    6. Bijwaard, G.E. & Franses, Ph.H.B.F., 2006. "Does rounding matter for payment efficiency?," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2006-43, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    7. Lederman, Daniel & Saenz, Laura, 2005. "Innovation and development around the world, 1960-2000," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3774, The World Bank.
    8. Symeonidis, George, 2001. "Price Competition, Innovation and Profitability: Theory and UK Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2816, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Verdier Valentin, 2018. "Local Semi-Parametric Efficiency of the Poisson Fixed Effects Estimator," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Iván Fernández-Val & Martin Weidner, 2018. "Fixed Effects Estimation of Large-TPanel Data Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 109-138, August.
    11. de Rassenfosse, Gaétan, 2013. "Do firms face a trade-off between the quantity and the quality of their inventions?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1072-1079.
    12. Zhang, Feng & Jiang, Guohua & Cantwell, John A., 2015. "Subsidiary exploration and the innovative performance of large multinational corporations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 224-234.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Amy Finkelstein, 2008. "Input and Technology Choices in Regulated Industries: Evidence from the Health Care Sector," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 837-880, October.
    14. Sagnik Bagchi & Surajit Bhattacharyya & K. Narayanan, 2015. "Anti-dumping Initiations in Indian Manufacturing Industries," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 16(2), pages 278-294, September.
    15. Angers, Jean-François & Desjardins, Denise & Dionne, Georges & Guertin, François, 2006. "Vehicle and Fleet Random Effects in a Model of Insurance Rating for Fleets of Vehicles," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 25-77, May.
    16. Bergman, Mats A. & Johansson, Per & Bergman, M.A., 2002. "Large investments in the pulp and paper industry: a count data regression analysis," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-52.
    17. repec:lan:wpaper:2935 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. William Greene, 2001. "Estimating Econometric Models With Fixed Effects," Working Papers 01-10, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    19. Dionne, Georges, 1998. "La mesure empirique des problèmes d’information," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 74(4), pages 585-606, décembre.
    20. Thomas Bolli & Martin Woerter, 2013. "Technological Diversification and Innovation Performance," KOF Working papers 13-336, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    21. French, Michael T. & Gumus, Gulcin & Homer, Jenny F., 2009. "Public policies and motorcycle safety," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 831-838, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Strategic Entry; Independent Candidates; Election; Prisoners‘ Dilemma; Fragmentation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:46069. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.