Mandated Political Representation and Redistribution

Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India

A basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making. However, policies enacted by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect the interests of disadvantaged minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of political reservation, as practiced in Indian states, to examine the role of mandated political repres...

Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy In uence for Disadvantaged minorities? Theory and Evidence from India

A basic premise of representative democracy is that all subject to policy should have a voice in the making of it. However, policies enacted by electorally accountable governments often fail to re ect the policy interests of disadvantaged minorities. This, in turn, has led many countries to enact electoral laws that seek to provide such groups political power through mandated political represen...

Political Economy of Redistribution∗

It is often argued that additional constraints on redistribution such as granting veto power to more players in the society makes property better protected from expropriation. We use a legislative bargainingtype model to demonstrate that this intuition may be flawed. Increasing the number of veto players or raising the supermajority requirement for redistribution may reduce protection on the eq...

Political Models of Redistribution

Women’s Political Engagement Under Quota-Mandated Female Representation: Evidence From a Randomized Policy Experiment

Do affirmative action measures for women in politics change the way constituents view and interact with their female representatives? A subnational randomized policy experiment in Lesotho with single-member districts reserved for female community councilors provides causal evidence to this question. Using survey data, I find that having a quota-mandated female representative either has no effec...