Do Electoral Quotas for Women and Minorities Worsen Representation? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India

Principal Investigator:

Rikhil Bhavnani, professor of political science

To remedy historical inequalities in political representation, over 100 countries across the world use electoral quotas or reservations for underrepresented groups including women and ethnic minorities. A substantial literature has examined the degree to which electoral quotas improve the representation of targeted minorities. While important, these studies mostly fail to grapple with the fact that people simultaneously hold multiple identities. For example, quotas for women might cause rich women to be elected, thereby improving the descriptive representation of women while simultaneously worsening the descriptive representation of the poor.

This project examines the effects of quotas on political selection in India, the world’s largest democracy, and asks: Do political quotas worsen representation on some dimensions even as they improve representation on others? Under what conditions, and why or why not? Answering these questions is important for a thorough evaluation of the efficacy of electoral quotas, a common remedy for inequalities in political representation

By examining the causal effects of electoral quotas on political selection, the project will deepen our understanding of a common electoral institution, and its benefits and drawbacks. The project will also be the first to examine who becomes a politician in India. Answering this question is important because politicians often profoundly shape people’s lives.

If the research finds that quotas improve representation on a targeted dimension (gender and/or caste in India) without worsening representation on other dimensions (such as education), the case for electoral quotas will be strengthened. If not, there might be a case for multidimensional or sub-quotas, such as those for (say) literate women and illiterate women.