A Violent Win: How Conflict Affects Political Competition in India

Somdeep Chatterjee and Manhar Manchanda

Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 72, issue 5

Abstract: In this paper, we study the impact of group violence around elections on political competition, using administrative electoral data and geocoded data on violent events from India. Our identification relies on a novel instrumental variable—surplus males in districts, relative to women, in a subset of the adult population—for dealing with the endogeneity of violence. We find that violence in the run‐up to elections leads to a decline in political competition as indicated by a consolidation of votes by the winner. We provide suggestive evidence in favor of “voter intimidation” as the underlying channel driving these results.

Date: 2025
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