Historical institutions and electoral outcomes the case of India after decolonization

Shree Saha ()
Additional contact information
Shree Saha: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India

Abstract: There is now ample evidence that historical colonial institutions impact contemporary economic outcomes and some suggest that these links might be mediated by the influence of colonial institutions on electoral processes and outcomes. This paper examines this under-researched link in the context of India, focusing on two colonial institutions that potentially influence electoral outcomes - the type of rule, i.e. whether a territory was under direct British rule or whether it was under native rule - and the type of land tenure installed by the British. I measure electoral outcomes by three variables: voter turnout (VT), margin of victory (MV) and electoral competition (EC) and ask: Do historical colonial institutions impact contemporary electoral outcomes and if yes, in what ways? Do such impacts persist in the longer term? I focus specifically on the elections at the cusp of decolonization (1951) and those in 1970s, to assess short and longer-terms impacts. Results indicate a 4 higher VT in native ruled areas in the long run and 5 higher VT in the non-landlord areas in the short run. The latter dissipates in the longer term because of tenancy reforms. I find EC consistently higher in British and landlord areas but no robust impact on MV is noted. These results are consistent with the role played by landlords and erstwhile princes of native states after decolonization. The paper provides evidence on the potentially important mediating role of electoral outcomes in link between historical institutions and economic outcomes and suggests that research on elections should not overlook the role of historical institutions and those exploring the historical origins of economic outcomes should not overlook the role of elections.

Keywords: Colonial institution; political institution; democracy; decolonization; path- dependence; elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B15 B16 B25 B52 D72 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his, nep-hme and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2019-033.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2019-033

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shamprasad M. Pujar ().