Author: Zuheir Desai

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This thesis examines electoral competition and voting behavior in developing democracies. In the first two essays, I look at patterns of electoral competition in developing democracies. The first chapter builds a theory of electoral competition on an economic dimension and a cross-cutting ethnic dimension. I examine the impact of distributional changes brought about by economic development on party strategies. The second chapter looks at Brazil specifically, and identifies descriptive representation of the poor as an important strategy in the arsenal of right-wing parties. The third chapter identifies the impact of the introduction of electronic voting technology in India. In the first essay, I develop a theory of electoral competition in developing democracies to trace the impact of income distributional changes brought about by economic development on party strategies on the traditional left-right (L-R) dimension and a cross-cutting ethnic cleavage. I show that intense competition on the L-R dimension forces the right to announce policies very close to those of the left in developing democracies. As a result, the L-R dimension does not structure vote choice. Economic development reduces competitive pressures on the L-R dimension and allows for more polarized policy positions. However, in the case when the ethnic cleavage represents majority minority divisions, development indirectly increases ethnic mobilization of the majority by both parties. Majoritarian or nationalist mobilization decreases with development only if there is a negative correlation between ethnic preferences and economic class. In the second essay, I, along with Professor Anderson Frey, argue that descriptive representation serves as a commitment by right-wing parties in Brazil to pro-poor policies. We first show theoretically that while policy differentiation is low in high poverty areas, the right recruits candidates that are descriptively closer to the poor than the left. In low poverty areas, policy differentiation is maximized, while candidate profiles converge. We provide empirical evidence from three municipal elections in Brazil using a regression discontinuity design in support of our hypotheses. In the final chapter, I, along with Professor Alexander Lee, look at the political effects of the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in India. We argue theoretically that the introduction of electronic voting machines deliberately designed to reduce invalid voting could lead to a substitution by voters using invalid ballots as protest votes to minor parties/candidates. We take advantage of the gradual introduction of EVMs in India to evaluate this hypothesis using a difference-in-difference methodology. Our results suggest that the introduction of EVMs led to a decline in invalid votes and a corresponding increase in vote shares of minor candidates"--Pages xi-xii

Download or read book Elections and Voting in Developing Democracies written by Zuheir Desai and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This thesis examines electoral competition and voting behavior in developing democracies. In the first two essays, I look at patterns of electoral competition in developing democracies. The first chapter builds a theory of electoral competition on an economic dimension and a cross-cutting ethnic dimension. I examine the impact of distributional changes brought about by economic development on party strategies. The second chapter looks at Brazil specifically, and identifies descriptive representation of the poor as an important strategy in the arsenal of right-wing parties. The third chapter identifies the impact of the introduction of electronic voting technology in India. In the first essay, I develop a theory of electoral competition in developing democracies to trace the impact of income distributional changes brought about by economic development on party strategies on the traditional left-right (L-R) dimension and a cross-cutting ethnic cleavage. I show that intense competition on the L-R dimension forces the right to announce policies very close to those of the left in developing democracies. As a result, the L-R dimension does not structure vote choice. Economic development reduces competitive pressures on the L-R dimension and allows for more polarized policy positions. However, in the case when the ethnic cleavage represents majority minority divisions, development indirectly increases ethnic mobilization of the majority by both parties. Majoritarian or nationalist mobilization decreases with development only if there is a negative correlation between ethnic preferences and economic class. In the second essay, I, along with Professor Anderson Frey, argue that descriptive representation serves as a commitment by right-wing parties in Brazil to pro-poor policies. We first show theoretically that while policy differentiation is low in high poverty areas, the right recruits candidates that are descriptively closer to the poor than the left. In low poverty areas, policy differentiation is maximized, while candidate profiles converge. We provide empirical evidence from three municipal elections in Brazil using a regression discontinuity design in support of our hypotheses. In the final chapter, I, along with Professor Alexander Lee, look at the political effects of the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in India. We argue theoretically that the introduction of electronic voting machines deliberately designed to reduce invalid voting could lead to a substitution by voters using invalid ballots as protest votes to minor parties/candidates. We take advantage of the gradual introduction of EVMs in India to evaluate this hypothesis using a difference-in-difference methodology. Our results suggest that the introduction of EVMs led to a decline in invalid votes and a corresponding increase in vote shares of minor candidates"--Pages xi-xii