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 representation. This paper analyzes the policy impact of a mandate that alters legislator identity, but not the demographic composition of the electorate. I construct a model of political competition to examine how, given the legislative policy-making rule and an assumption of no policy commitment, introduction of such a mandate alters electoral and policy outcomes. Consistent with the model's predictions, state-level panel data from India shows that mandated political representation has a ected electoral outcomes, and increased transfers to disadvantaged minorities. Dept. of Economics, Columbia University; 420 W. 118th Street; New York, NY 10027. e-mail: [email protected]. This paper is based on Chapter 2 of my PhD thesis (LSE 1999). I am indebted to my advisor Tim Besley for help, advice and, above all, enthusiasm for the subject. Many thanks to David Epstein and Dom Leggett for detailed comments. Thanks also to Abhijit Banerjee, Robin Burgess, Steve Coate, Esther Du o, Lena Edlund, Maitreesh Ghatak, Steve Nickell, Torsten Persson, Ken Shepsle and numerous seminar participants for comments. Financial support from the LSE, Overseas Research Students Award, Royal Economic Society, STICERD and the Wingate Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. All errors remain mine.