Public Sector Employment as a Pathway to Local Electoral Politics: Evidence from Rural India

• Status: In preparation for submission
• Fieldwork supported by the Sobti Family Fellowship (CASI), Penn Development Research Initiative (PDRI) - DevLab@Penn, Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Immigration, Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics, Judith Rodin Fellowship and the SAS Dissertation Research Award 

Abstract: Political selection is critical for how well democracies function. An important strand in the literature on political selection focuses on occupations and professions that lead to political entry. In this article, I study a highly coveted occupation in developing countries – public sector employment – to investigate if it can be a pathway to electoral politics. I develop a theory of political entry at the household level and test how acquiring a public sector job influences supply-side (entry barriers) and demand-side (voter perceptions) factors affecting political entry in the context of local elected government in rural India. Using the India Human Development Survey (a nationally representative panel dataset of over 40,000 households) and employing a difference-in-differences framework, I find that acquiring public sector employment by a member of the household is associated with higher political entry at the household level. I offer evidence to suggest that documented supply-side constraints to political entry –  like household income and political and social networks – are more easily overcome by such households. Next, I investigate demand-side consequences via conjoint experiments in the state of Bihar in India and find that citizens perceive individuals having a government worker in the family as more likely to contest and win local Panchayat elections. The conjoint set up also helps pin down mechanisms such as financial status, knowledge, political networks, social connections and prestige that influence voter perceptions regarding candidates from households with a member with a government job. 

Learning to Govern: The Impact of Politicians’ Peer Networks

• Status: Phase-1 Acceptance, Journal of Development Economics (Based on Pre-Results Review)
  • Pre-results paper available here
• Supported by the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics, J-PAL's Governance Initiative, and the International Growth Centre (IGC)

Abstract: Many elected leaders enter office with limited knowledge of how government works and must learn to govern on the job.  We examine whether peer networks of local politicians can facilitate such learning and improve governance.  In a large-scale field experiment involving over 7,500 elected village councillors in Bihar, India, we randomly assign politicians to cross-village peer groups that regularly discuss governance challenges. Peer groups raise politicians' knowledge of governance processes and best practices.  We identify substantial knowledge spillovers to untreated political colleagues, particularly when councillors share a caste, religious or partisan identity, and for non-rivalrous schemes.  Peer groups also increase politicians' confidence and agency, and expand their professional and party networks while modestly increasing conflict within the village.  Treated villages prepare more effective development plans, and increase expenditure on public goods that citizens prioritise and councillors campaigned on.  Our findings demonstrate that peer networks build politicians' capacity and diffuse knowledge across local governments.

Missing from the Middle: Patriarchal Constraints and the Invisibilization of Women in Everyday Governance 

• Status: Revise & resubmit
• Draft paper available here
• Awarded the Penn GAPSA-Provost Fellowship Award

Abstract: Studies on women's representation often examine the consequences of their formal inclusion (e.g. from policy implementation to legislative behavior). However, when the requirements of the office stand in tension with the underlying patriarchal constraints shaping women's lives, we propose stepping back to ask whether formal inclusion even brings women to the table to govern. We answer this question by investigating the presence of female leaders in the formal and informal spaces of routine governance i.e. the ``missing middle'' where frequent interactions between the state, its actors and citizens define politics in the Global South. We use multiple original surveys (N~4400) of citizens, candidates and representatives across two states in India to collect data on three different ethnographically informed behavioral measures of governance --- accessibility to citizens, visibility in the community and attendance in meetings. We find a persistent gender gap across these measures, albeit to a varying degree, that confirms the systematic invisibilization of women in the critical measures of everyday governance. Consequently, we find the striking presence of male family members in governance that we argue is a feature of the patriarchal constraints that structure women's leadership. Our findings provide critical insights for policymakers and suggest the need to reorient our focus on female representation to intermediary spaces where formal inclusion translates into substantive representation or is stalled.

Political Selection in an Unequal Democracy: The Tradeoff Between Competence and Representation

• Draft paper available on request

Abstract: Who enters politics in low-income democracies?  We describe political selection patterns in Bihar, India, by linking 1 million candidates in village elections to population-wide administrative data on 97 million citizens.  We document a strong tradeoff between politicians' competence and representativeness.  Politicians are strongly positively selected on competence: candidates are 0.67 SD more educated than citizens and 0.18 SD more educated than their own siblings.  Yet politicians also hail from privileged social groups and families: their fathers are 0.24 SD more educated than the average citizen. This competence-representativeness tradeoff is sharper in unequal, diverse villages with limited party presence.  Using a close election regression discontinuity design, we examine whether this tradeoff matters for governance.  Highly competent village leaders are better informed about governance processes and best practices, and implement skill-intensive projects more effectively. They are no better, and no worse, at representing citizens' preferences in government spending.  Finally, we show that reserving positions for marginalised groups reshapes political selection over time.  In the short run, reservations for Scheduled Castes and women raise candidates' representativeness while reducing competence.  In the long run, however, reservations improve political selection on both margins, as a more competent and socially representative pool of unreserved citizens enters politics once quotas are removed. Our findings identify what narrows the pool of citizens who can realistically contest elections in low-income democracies, and show how institutional design can change who enters politics and, over time, relax the tradeoff between competence and representation.

Safe Spaces or Elite Networks? The Effects of Peer Composition on Political Effectiveness

• Draft paper available on request

Abstract: Leaders of marginalised groups often lack both the knowledge and connections to make the state more responsive to their constituents' concerns. We compare two approaches to empowering marginalised politicians — safe spaces and elite networks — by randomly assigning elected Scheduled Caste (SC) leaders in Bihar, India, to peer groups composed only of fellow SCs or to groups drawn from the elite-dominated political class. Only safe spaces close governance knowledge gaps: SC leaders in SC-only groups acquire 0.15 standard deviations more knowledge, eliminating the gap with non-SC politicians, while SC leaders in mixed groups show no gains, despite interacting with more educated, experienced, and connected peers. Safe spaces work through engagement: their members know their peers better, participate more actively, and hold higher-quality discussions that generate solutions on the issues they campaigned on. Mixed groups instead build ties to the bureaucrats who control scheme implementation, while safe spaces connect SC leaders to political parties. Each additional safe-space SC leader shifts village development spending towards the projects SC politicians campaign on and SC citizens want. Our findings show that access to advantaged peers alone may not be sufficient to empower marginalized leaders: the social setting in which interactions occur shapes whether networks translate into learning and political access.

Other Research and Writing