Party System Change and Electoral Resilience: Assessing Congress Performance

• In Event: Elections, Party Systems, and Representation in India

Abstract

Party systems at the state level in India have evolved considerably since Independence and show great variation in levels of fragmentation and electoral cleavages. While dominance of the Congress party has ceased across all states, there is great variation in the extent to which Congress shows resilience. While the party has largely faded in some states where the party system is more fragmented, it tends to perform relatively well in states where the party system revolves around two parties. This paper explores different hypotheses to account for the resilience of the Congress: a more developed partisan infrastructure, the nature of the cleavages at the state level, and the typeof party linkages at the state level. It argues that in states where ideological appeals are more relevant to voters, the party tends to perform better, suggesting that the party may be less of a nonprogrammatic machine than is usually assumed. The paper contributes to a broad literature on party system formation and change, with lessons from India for similar post-colonial democracies.

Author

• Thibaud Marcesse, Boston College