Some Unintended Consequences of Political Quotas

Many countries are considering adopting political quotas for under-represented and disadvantaged minorities, but critics of the policy claim that it undermines political competition. Using evidence from India, I examine the impact of mandated political representation for disadvantaged minorities. Aggregate turnout falls by 9% of the baseline, but I find no negative impact on electoral competition as measured by the margin of victory or number of candidates. Detailed individual-level data for one state suggests that voter participation falls among women and among minorities. This suggests that restricting candidate identity to minorities may cause some bias in voter participation. I would like to thank Oriana Bandiera, Guy Michaels and Gerard Padro-i-Miquel for their support and guidance. I would like to thank Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, who was extremely generous with data. I would like to thank Joachim Groeger, Michael Best, Iain Long and Barbara Richter and seminar participants at the LSE for helpful comments and discussions. All remaining errors are my own.