1. A Tale of Two Villages: Kinship Netwoks and Political Preference Change in Rural India
- Author:
- Neelanjan Sircar
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- This paper develops a theory on how voters form and change political preferences in democratic de- veloping world contexts. In the developing world, where state institutions are often weak, voters tend to be more focused on the competence and capacity of parties and candidates to deliver benefits. Such information may be difficult to ascertain, so voters must glean information from how candidates con- duct themselves during the electoral campaign. Voters use kinship networks to develop more accurate preferences by collectively reasoning through newly available information on candidates. In order to demonstrate these claims, this study analyzes data collected on political preferences and kinship net- works in two villages just before and after the campaign period during the 2011 Assembly election in the Indian state of West Bengal. The paper finds very strong kinship network effects on changes in issue preferences and vote choice over the course of the campaign and explains the results through qualitative work and a series of network autoregressive statistical models. In sum, this paper demonstrates how vot- ers develop independent preferences and implement political change, even in low information contexts with weak human capital.
- Topic:
- Elections, Democracy, and Networks
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, Asia, and West Bengal