Rural Politics in South Asia

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The papers in this session delve into multifaceted dimensions of rural politics in South Asia, a region that is home to a quarter of the world’s population. Despite rapid urbanization, about 64% of South Asia’s 1.92 billion people still live in rural areas. As the South Asia’s rural communities grapple with agrarian distress, chronic unemployment, mass migration, and inadequate service provision, a fine-grained understanding of the macro and micro-level forces helping reshape the political landscape of this region acquires great urgency. Understanding the pathways through which marginalized groups, including women and minorities, enter and engage in politics is crucial for fostering inclusive and representative governance in the region’s underserved rural hinterlands. From examining women’s substantive representation in politics through innovative experimental interventions to understanding the dynamics of coalition building among structurally divided farmer groups, the papers in this panel advance our understanding of emerging patterns of representation and accountability in South Asia. The papers employ a variety of theoretical frameworks, empirical methods, and issue areas to offer a unique lens to understand rural politics at a time of considerable demographic, social, and economic change in the region.

The paper co-authored by Rachel Brulé, Alyssa Heinze, Bhumi Purohit, and Simon Chauchard, addresses the crucial issue of women's political representation and agency. Focusing on a pilot Randomized Control Trial (RCT) conducted in Maharashtra, India, the study examines the impact of forming medium-term, all-women peer solidarity groups among locally elected officials. By providing valuable information and facilitating solidarity networks, the intervention aims to enhance female politicians' political agency in office. The comparative analysis with typical peer solidarity groups, including male political gatekeepers, offers a unique perspective on effective strategies for empowering women in political roles.

Rajkamal Singh's paper examines coalition formation among Indian farmers, a group that has been under severe economic stress and is divided along caste, class, and ideological lines. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Singh argues that while organizations’ ability to mobilize large structural networks enhances their power, it simultaneously magnifies divisions within the movement. Conversely, when organizations possess low capacity to mobilize their networks, the ability to threaten others’ interests and assert their identities diminishes, competition becomes localized and segregated, and organizations are more likely to adopt collaborative strategies to enhance their chance of success. Singh’ work demonstrates that even under-resourced, divided groups can successfully leverage coalitions to make successful claims of the state.

Apurva Bamezai's research focuses on the link between public sector employment and entry into electoral politics in India. The study investigates how acquiring a public sector job influences supply-side (entry barriers) and demand-side (voter preferences) factors affecting political entry in the context of local elected government in rural India. By employing a difference-in-differences framework to data from the India Human Development Survey and presenting evidence from conjoint experiments with rural citizens in the state of Bihar, the study traces the relationship between public sector employment and political entry at the village-council level. This paper enriches our understanding of the pathways to political entry, highlighting the role of occupational trajectories in shaping the composition of the political class in the Global South.

Priyadarshi Amar's paper examines the consequences of limiting political office eligibility to candidates with desirable characteristics in India's village councils. By examining the tradeoff created by India's unique 'two-child limits' laws for individuals aspiring to local government offices, the paper studies the disproportionate tradeoffs brought about by ballot access laws under imperfect enforcement and its implications on the political entry of marginalized minority groups. The study uses nationally representative data on rural India and primary data collected using a phone survey of village politicians in Maharashtra, one of the major states that adopted the two-child limit law.

Shashwat Dhar's paper examines the connections between internal economic migration and political change within India's rural periphery. Focusing on Madhubani, Bihar, a high-migration corridor in Eastern India, the study leverages original data from a priming experiment, focus groups, and a large-scale household survey to illuminate the relatively understudied political costs of mass migration in left-behind rural communities. The paper’s findings have important implications for how we understand citizen-state relations and political accountability in the hinterland.

Sub Unit

• Division 62: South Asian Politics

Individual Presentations

• From Divided to United: The Paradoxical Effects of Mobilizing Structural Network - RAJ KAMAL SINGH, New York University

• Public Sector Employment as a Pathway to Local Electoral Politics - Apurva Bamezai, University of Pennsylvania

• Do Ballot Access Laws Affect Marginalized Minority Groups Disproportionately? - Priyadarshi Amar, University of Wisconsin Madison

• When Exit Drowns Out Voice: Migration and Political Disengagement in Rural India - Shashwat Dhar, Vanderbilt University

• Promoting Women Politicians’ Political Agency through Peer Groups - Rachel E. Brule, Boston University; Alyssa Heinze, University of California, Berkeley; Bhumi Purohit, Georgetown University; Simon Chauchard, University Carlos 3 of Madrid; Ishwari Kale

Chair

• Adam W. Ziegfeld Temple University

Discussants

• Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner University of Virginia

• Soledad Artiz Prillaman Stanford University