Poverty and democratic participation reconsidered: Evidence from the local level in India

Comparative Politics

Volumn 38, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 439-458

  Krishna, Anirudh ^a  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749680567     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20434011     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. See Leonardo Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002);
2. Evelyne Huber, Dietrich Rueschmeyer, and John D. Stephens, "The Paradox of Contemporary Democracy: Formal, Participatory, and Social Dimensions," in Lisa Anderson, ed., Transitions to Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 168-92;
3. Nicolas van de Walle, "Economic Reform in a Democratizing Africa," Comparative Politics, 32 (October 1999), 21-41.
4. See, for example, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965);
5. Seymour M. Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review, 53 (March 1959), 69-105;
6. Seymour M. Lipset, "The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited," American Sociological Review, 59 (February 1994), 1-22;
7. Steven J. Rosenstone and John M. Hansen, Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993);
8. Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie, and Jae-On Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978);
9. Sidney Verba, Kay Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995). The last cited work shows that participation rates are higher among relatively richer citizens in the United States (with incomes above $75,000) than relatively poorer ones (incomes below $15,000): voting, 86 versus 52 percent, respectively; campaign work, 17 versus 4 percent; and contacting, 50 versus 25 percent.
10. World Bank, World Development Report 2000/1 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2001), p. 281.
11. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 34.
12. Larry Diamond, "Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered," in Gary Marks and Larry Diamond, eds., Re-examining Democracy: Essays in Honor of Seymour Martin Lipset (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1992), pp. 93-139.
13. Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, "Africans' Surprising Universalism," Journal of Democracy, 12 (January 2001), 107-21.
14. Steven E. Finkel, "Civic Education and the Mobilization of Political Participation in Developing Democracies," Journal of Politics, 64 (November 2002), 994-1020.
15. See, for example, Jonathan T. Hiskey and Mitchell A. Seligson, "Pitfalls of Power to the People: Decentralization, Local Government Performance, and System Support in Bolivia," Studies in Comparative International Development, 37 (Winter 2003), 64-88;
16. Robert A. Jackson, "Differential Influences on Latino Electoral Participation," Political Behavior, 25 (December 2003), 339-66;
17. Raymond Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone, Who Votes? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
18. Information is "vital to democracy in myriad ways...in the processes by which citizen preferences are formed and aggregated, in the behaviors of citizens and elites, in formal procedures of representation...and in the mechanisms of accountability....None of these elements of the democratic process can operate apart from the exchange and flow of information." Bruce. A. Bimber, Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 11.
19. See, for instance, Bruce. A. Bimber, Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power (2003), p. 11. ibid.;
20. Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989);
21. Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996);
22. Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder, News That Matters: Television and American Public Opinion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987);
23. Pippa Norris, A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Post-Industrial Societies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Verba, Schlozman, and Brady.
24. Harry Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polby, eds., Handbook of Political Science (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 79-137.
25. For the opposite viewpoint, that decentralization can in certain circumstances have deleterious effects, especially on macroeconomic performance, see, for example, Jonathan Rodden, "The Dilemma of Fiscal Federalism: Grants and Fiscal Performance around the World," American Journal of Political Science, 46 (July 2002), 670-87;
26. Daniel Treisman, "Decentralization and Inflation: Commitment, Collective Action, and Continuity," American Political Science Review, 94 (December 2000), 837-57.
27. World Bank, World Development Report 2000/1, p. 106.
28. See, for instance, Catherine Boone, "Decentralization as Political Strategy in West Africa," Comparative Political Studies, 36 (May 2003), 355-80;
29. Richard Crook and James Manor, Democracy and Decentralization in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, Accountability and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
30. Christopher Garman, Stephan Haggard, and Eliza Willis, "Fiscal Decentralization: A Political Theory with Latin American Cases," World Politics, 53 (January 2001), 205-36;
31. Milton J. Esman and Norman T. Uphoff, Local Organizations: Intermediaries in Rural Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
32. Hiskey and Seligson, p. 83.
33. Planning Commission of India figures cited in Montek S. Ahluwalia, "Economic Performance of States in Post-Reform Period," Economic and Political Weekly, May 6, 2000.
34. These figures are derived from the random sample of 2,013 adult villagers interviewed for this study. Wealth is measured in terms of landholding, as explained later in the text, and education is measured in terms of number of years spent at school.
35. See, for instance, Francine R Frankel, "Introduction," in Francine R. Frankel and M. S. A. Rao, eds., Dominance and State Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order, vol. 1 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 1-20;
36. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996);
37. Ashutosh Varshney, Civic Life and Ethnic Conflict: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
38. For a more complete description of panchayats, see George Mathew, Panchayati Raj: From Legislation to Movement (New Delhi: Concept Publishing, 1995);
39. George Mathew and Ramesh C. Nayak, Panchayats at Work: What It Means for the Oppressed (New Delhi: Institute of Social Sciences, 1996).
40. Copies of this questionnaire and the one reported in the next section can be obtained on request from the author.
41. See, for example, Michael Bratton, "Political Participation in a New Democracy: Institutional Considerations from Zambia," Comparative Political Studies, 32 (August 1999), 549-88; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady.
42. This single common factor has a communality of 3.87, implying that it accounts for more than 65 percent of the combined variance of these six separate elements. Factor loadings are all 0.7 or higher.
43. Correlations of the six individual items with the index are all 0.77 or higher. Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha = 0.875.
44. Standard hectares are used for these measurements. Differences in productive quality between irrigated and unirrigated land are factored into these numbers.
45. Apart from one of these sources, newspapers, all others are accessible equally by uneducated and educated villagers, so education is not closely correlated with this information variable, as is also verified by the data.
46. District dummies were also employed in the analysis but without achieving any significance.
47. The correlation coefficient between land ownership and education is only 0.14. The correlation coefficient between land ownership and information is even smaller, 0.09. Correlation between education and information is 0.445 but is still not high enough to cause problems of multicollinearity.
48. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine why the gender effect should loom so large. Gyarasi Bai, a woman leader of Balapura village, Ajmer district, had the following to say in this regard. "In matters outside the house, such as politics, it is the men who have traditionally had most say. Women are becoming more aware now of the world outside, but for generations past their place was inside their own house." Interviewed in Balapura, June 2, 2002.
49. Interactive variables combining gender with other caste and religious categories were also examined, but they were not significant.
50. The salience of politically relevant information obtained through such social communications among neighbors and fellow citizens is examined theoretically and empirically by R. Robert Huckfeldt and John Sprague, Citizens, Politics and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
51. Villagers who live in the state of Rajasthan have participation scores that are on average five percentage points higher than those of villagers who live in Madhya Pradesh. The explanation for this difference between states is not entirely clear from this analysis.
52. Caste was significant at the 0.01 level in this analysis, while age and length of residence were significant at the 0.1 level.
53. Interview with Mothulal Vaishnava, Kailashpuri village, Udaipur district, May 22, 2002.
54. It is not possible to dismiss entirely an alternative explanation suggesting that those who are more politically active also tend to seek information and education more actively. Following Norris, p. 18, a two-way interactive process operates, a virtuous circle, with a "ratchet of reinforcement [which] moves in a direction that is healthy for democratic participation." It is interesting, however, to note that each of the seven sources of information is separately significant, including sources that an individual makes an effort to consult (such as radio) as well as others from which information becomes available more routinely (such as household members). Not just politically active individuals look for information; political activity tends to increase even when information is routinely available to individuals.
55. Yogendra Yadav, "Electoral Politics in the Time of Change: India's Third Electoral System, 1989-99," Economic and Political Weekly, Aug. 21, 1999, pp. 2391-99.
56. A single common factor underlies responses to the six separate questions. Communality is 4.42 out of a maximum possible score of 6, indicating that more than 70 percent of the combined variance is explained by this common factor.
57. Removing the components for government officials and political parties does not change the significance of the composite variable, access to information, suggesting that endogeneity is not indicated in this relationship between access to information and high participation scores.
58. Interview with Vandana Meena, formerly Zila Pramukh (elected president of the district-level local government), Udaipur, March 10, 1999.
59. Once again, the regression model was run without including the education and information variables, and once again variables that were not previously significant, including caste (at the 0.01 level), wealth (at the 0.01 level), and age (at the 0.05 level), gained significance.
60. Because there exists a close association between the variable distance to high school and average educational achievement in a village, the individual-level variable, education is not additionally considered in this analysis. The variables distance to high school and distance to headquarters are not closely correlated.
61. The position of elected chief has been reserved for scheduled tribes in local governments where scheduled tribes form the majority of the population. Because individual scheduled tribes tend to have participation scores that are on average five to six percentage points lower than other villagers, it can be expected that the average participation score in areas where scheduled tribes form the majority of the population will be, in general, less than those for other areas. Reserving the position of elected chief for scheduled tribes is not the cause of the observed decline.
62. See Rohini Pande, "Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India," American Economic Review, 93 (September 2003), 1132-51.
63. For instance, a woman who has access to between five and seven information sources is five times more likely to have a participation score within the top three deciles, compared to another woman who has access to only three or four information sources.
64. Data from India National Fertility and Health Survey II, 1988-99.
65. Evidence from the United States indicates that diminishing returns might set in when levels of education and information become relatively high on average. See, for instance, Richard Davis, The Web of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998);
66. Norman Nie, Jane Junn, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry, Education and Democratic Citizenship in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). This eventuality is not likely to be of immediate concern in India and in other democracies where poverty remains large and average education levels are still quite low.
67. Joshua Bernard Forrest, "The Drought Policy Bureaucracy, Decentralization, and Policy Networks in Post-Apartheid Namibia," American Review of Public Administration, 30 (September 2000), 307-33.
68. Christie Gombay, "Market Vendors, City Government, and the World Bank in Kampala, Uganda," in Jonathan Barker, ed., Street-Level Democracy: Political Settings at the Margins of Global Power (West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1998), pp. 150-82.
69. World Resources Institute, Closing the Gap: Information, Participation and Justice in Decision-Making for the Environment (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 2002).
70. Karen Remmer, "Theoretical Decay and Theoretical Development: The Resurgence of Institutional Analysis," World Politics, 50 (October 1997), 34-61.
71. The social scientists involved in developing this program have reported on it in a fortnightly news-magazine. A. P. Kripa and G. S. Ganesh Prasad, "The Message of Panchayati Raj," Frontline, Apr. 15-28, 2000.
72. Patrick Heller, "Degrees of Democracy: Some Comparative Lessons from India," World Politics, 52 (July 2000), 498.
73. A parallel analysis of perceived exclusion from the services and benefits provided by panchayats was conducted among the same random sample of 2,013 village residents. Education and information mattered critically (and negatively) for the extent of exclusion from services and benefits.
74. James L. Gibson, "Social Networks, Civil Society, and the Prospects for Consolidating Russia's Democratic Transition," American Journal of Political Science, 45 (January 2001), 51-68;
75. Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
76. Anirudh Krishna, "Enhancing Political Participation in Democracies: What Is the Role of Social Capital?" Comparative Political Studies, 35 (May 2002), 437-60.
77. John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
78. This variable reflects the omnibus effect of caste status, and it is calculated by assigning ranks (from 1 to 5) to each caste related to its position within the caste hierarchy. This assignment is somewhat arbitrary, no doubt; however, these results do not change when other caste variables are considered instead.