Why Ethnic Parties Succeed
Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India

Offers a theory on the performance of ethnic political parties as a distinct phenomenon.

Kanchan Chandra (Author)

9780521891417, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 15 February 2007

368 pages, 17 b/w illus. 7 maps 39 tables
22.7 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.553 kg

'In explaining why some ethnic parties succeed while others fail, Kanchan Chandra makes an important contribution to our understanding of ethnicity in politics. By highlighting the interaction of group size and internal party rules in a context characterized by the kind of information constraints inherent in patronage democracies, she provides a nover microfoundation for ethnic politics in competitive democracies. In addition, her book sets a new benchmark on how to combine abstract thinking and rich analysis.' Stathis N. Kalyvas, Yale University

Why do some ethnic parties succeed in attracting the support of their target ethnic group while others fail? In a world in which ethnic parties flourish in both established and emerging democracies alike, understanding the conditions under which such parties rise and fall is of critical importance to both political scientists and policy makers. Drawing on a study of variation in the performance of ethnic parties in India, this book builds a theory of ethnic party performance in 'patronage democracies'. Chandra shows why individual voters and political entrepreneurs in such democracies condition their strategies not on party ideologies or policy platforms, but on a headcount of co-ethnics and others across party personnel and among the electorate.

List of maps
figures, and tables
List of abbreviations
A note on terminology
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Part I. Theory: 2. Limited information and ethnic categorization
3. Patronage-democracy, limited information and ethnic favouritism
4. Counting heads: why ethnic parties succeed in patronage-democracies
5. Why parties have different ethnic head counts: party organization and elite incorporation
Part II. Data: 6. India as a patronage-democracy
7. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Scheduled Castes (SCs)
8. Why SC elites join the BSP
9. Why SC voters prefer the BSP
10. Why SC voter preferences translate into BSP votes
11. Explaining different head counts in the BSP and congress
12. Extending the argument to other ethnic parties in India: the BJP, the DMK and the JMM
13. Ethnic head counts and democratic stability
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political structure & processes [JPH]