Abstract 

A basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making. However, policies enacted by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect the interests of disadvantaged minorities.

This paper exploits the institutional features of political reservation, as practiced in Indian states, to examine the role of mandated political representation in providing disadvantaged groups influence over policy-making.

I find that political reservation has increased transfers to groups which benefit from the mandate.

This finding also suggests that complete policy commitment may be absent in democracies, as is found in this case. 

Introduction

Justification of Improvement of Economic Standing of Historically Disadvantaged Minority Groups

There are strong moral and economic arguments suggesting that it is in the interest of society to improve the economic standing of historically disadvantaged minority groups.

In democracies, the use of legislative policy to bring about such improvements remains contingent on legislator behavior, and arguably, a significant barrier to the introduction of such policies is the political underrepresentation of individuals belonging to minority groups who might vote in their own interest.

Both sets of arguments are particularly compelling in the case of India, where the hierarchical caste system has contributed to the economic deprivation of those born into lower castes.

At independence, the Indian State committed to use public policy to end caste-based discrimination, and to improve the economic status of disadvantaged groups. A centrepiece of this endeavour has been the implementation of the constitutional mandate which ensures the presence of legislators belonging to minority groups in state and national legislatures.

This paper examines the impact of this mandated political representation on policy outcomes in India at the state level.

The Indian Mandate

While many countries have experimented with mandates which seek to increase minority representation in the political process, the Indian experiment remains, by far, the most radical (Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, 1986).

• Prior to every state election, specified jurisdictions are declared reserved for disadvantaged castes and for tribes.

• Only members of the group which benefit from reservation can stand for election.

• However, the entire electorate votes over the set of candidates.

• The effect of the mandate is to alter legislator identity without affecting voter identity.

The placing of requirements on candidate identity in reserved jurisdictions directly increases the political representation afforded to minority groups in the legislature.

Political reservation has had a profound effect on the Indian political landscape, a quarter of all legislators in India, at both the national and state level, come from reserved jurisdictions.

The use of mandates to enhance minority political representation is predicated on the assumption that legislative capture by non-minority individuals adversely affects the policy interests of minority groups, and that parties cannot fully control candidate behavior after elections (for if they could, candidate identity would be irrelevant to the policy process).

This assumption is, however, invalid if a party’s preferred policy is independent of its candidates’ identity, and parties and voters can ensure that candidate behaviour after elections is guided by the commitments they made beforehand, a standard assumption in many political economy models (Anthony Downs, 1957).

An analysis of the impact of political reservation on policy provides a direct empirical test of this assumption.