Partisan Alignment, Insurgency and Security: Evidence from the Indian Red-corridor

Ashani Amarasinghe (), Pushkar Maitra () and Yuchen Zhong ()
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Ashani Amarasinghe: School of Economics, University of Sydney and and SoDa Laboratories, Monash University;
Pushkar Maitra: Department of Economics, Monash University
Yuchen Zhong: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, University of Melbourne

No 2023-22, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Better economic outcomes can prevail when governments at different levels of hierarchy are politically aligned. This often happens because upper level governments are more willing to transfer resources to, and invest in public goods in, aligned constituencies. In this paper we examine whether such political alignment causally affects security. We consider the case of the Naxalite insurgency in India, an issue of significant public safety and security. We focus on close elections and use a regression discontinuity (RD) design, which allows us to examine the causal impact of electing an aligned candidate on security. Our RD estimates show that the election of an aligned candidate leads to a significant reduction in violence. Examining the role of local natural resource activity, i.e., mining, as an underlying mechanism, we find that this negative effect is driven by constituencies close to mining areas. These findings confirm the relevance of political alignment in delivering security within constituencies, and the potential role played by local mining activity.

Keywords: Political alignment; Naxalite insurgency; security; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H11 H41 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dev, nep-pol and nep-ure
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