Do Democratic Reforms Undermine Dominance?

• In Event: Elites in Democracies and Autocracies

Abstract

Democratic reforms such as decentralization and electoral quotas often aim to undermine the dominance of traditional elites. However, this is likely to be met with backlash. We examine whether and how democratic reforms restructure the allocation of power in the context of India, by matching two large-scale censuses covering more than 30 million citizens and 13 states with data on political representatives and efforts at deepening democracy. We first describe how the traditional sources of power in India--population size, land, and education--shape patterns of political selection. We then explore spatial variation in patterns of political selection to evaluate how variation in the extent of democratic reforms, including decentralization and political quotas, translate into different regimes of political power. Our results unite studies of political selection and dominance to unpack the roots of political power in India.

Authors

• Rikhil R Bhavnani, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Soledad Artiz Prillaman, Stanford University