Investigators: Soledad Prillaman, Rikhil Bhavnani, and Alba Huidobro

Location: India

Status: Data collection & analysis

Abstract

The Constitution of India mandates the representation of women and historically marginalized caste groups in local elections through reserved seats. Critics of electoral quotas for minority populations have expressed concern that quotas will worsen politician quality. In order to understand the merit of these claims, the ID2 Lab is leveraging census data and data from an original Local Election Database. Early findings from this research suggest that under conditions of discrimination, electoral quotas can improve politician quality when voters hold minority politicians to higher standards. The research team’s analysis has revealed that women and minority politicians must be relatively more exceptional with respect to their educational attainment as compared to upper-caste men in order to succeed in local elections. This dynamic, however, may be undercut when there is a limited supply of educated minority candidates. Accordingly, when there is a sufficiently high supply of educated minorities, electoral quotas improve politician quality.