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Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas

Handbook on Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action

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Abstract

Does political affirmative action undermine or promote development? We present the first systematic analysis of Scheduled Areas in India, home to 100 million, where local political office is reserved for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Tribes. A newly constructed dataset of 217,000 villages allows us to probe conflicting hypotheses on the implementation of the world’s largest workfare program, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. We find that reservations deliver no worse overall outcomes, that there are large gains for targeted minorities, and that these gains come at the cost of the relatively privileged, not other minorities. We also find improvements in other pro-poor programs, including a rural roads program and general public goods. Reservations more closely align benefits to each group’s population share, allaying concerns of overcompensation for inequalities. Contrary to the expectations of skeptics, results indicate that affirmative action can redistribute both political and economic power without hindering overall development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Krook and Zetterberg (2014).

  2. 2.

    While Jensenius (2015), Pande (2003), and Das et al. (2017) conduct similar exercises, our detailed data help to disaggregate the nontargeted group into meaningful categories of SC and nonminorities, allowing us to study the causal effect of reservations on both efficiency and redistribution.

  3. 3.

    Studies also indicate that individuals may be willing to forgo economic gains where they might come with social costs under an out-group leader, which could lead nonminority groups to opt out of competition (Akerlof and Kranton 2010; Moffitt 1983; Gille 2013). As we argue below, the design of NREGS makes this unlikely.

  4. 4.

    While religion is an additional important identity category, since Independence the Muslim minority group has been excluded from political quotas.

  5. 5.

    We focus on the Fifth Schedule that governs the majority of Scheduled Areas in India. An additional Sixth Schedule of the Constitution details the administration of tribal areas in four northeastern states. For more information, see Appendix A.

  6. 6.

    Union of India and Others v. Rakesh Kumar and Others. Supreme Court of India, January 12, 2010.

  7. 7.

    Appendix A provides further discussion on what constitutes a Scheduled Tribe and the Scheduled Areas in Jharkhand.

  8. 8.

    SC and ST categories first gained some preferential representation in the Government of India Act of 1935, officially sanctioned in the Constitution via Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, and the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950. National Commissions for SC and ST were instituted via Articles 338 and 338A, respectively. Legislation was passed to protect individuals from both identity categories from violence in 1989 by means of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe – Prevention of Atrocities Act.

  9. 9.

    See for instance https://web.archive.org/web/20180218235157/http://planningcommission.gov.in/aboutus/taskforce/inter/inter_sts.pdf

  10. 10.

    We discuss concerns related to leakage in Appendix G.

  11. 11.

    While we cannot further decompose the identit(ies) of these non-SC/ST individuals – we do expect that these individuals will be comparatively more likely to be members of the High/Forward Castes, and to have, on average, better economic opportunities. At the very least, in Appendix D we control for district-level Muslim population and find that results are unchanged.

  12. 12.

    Appendix D presents the OLS results.

  13. 13.

    Following Dell (2010), we use the functional form: x + y + x2 + y2 + xy + x3 + y3 + x2y + xy2.

  14. 14.

    Appendix E shows how improved employment for ST might be particularly beneficial for ST women.

  15. 15.

    Appendix G shows that we find no evidence for two alternative explanations: discrepancies in reporting, and differences in reliance on centralized government-explained effects.

  16. 16.

    For example, quota politicians may prefer NREGS relative to other priorities because NREGS allows them to perpetuate patronage through handout of state resources (Marcesse 2017).

  17. 17.

    We define ST Pluralityv = 1 ⋅ [ST popv ≥  max (SC popv, non SC/ST popv)].

  18. 18.

    Appendix F presents several robustness exercises.

  19. 19.

    Data on homicides against ST do not support the theory that crowding out could be driven by privileged groups opting out of NREGS work due to social stigma. See Appendix F.

  20. 20.

    Interestingly, we find that when the Assembly Constituency reservation is for SC, there are no negative quota overlap effects for ST (see Appendix F).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ingo Rohlfing and three anonymous reviewers at the American Political Science Review, Ramnarayan Bhagat, Rachel Brulé, Lauren Davenport, Miriam Golden, Justin Grimmer, Maira Hayat, Clément Imbert, Hakeem Jefferson, Francesca Jensenius, David Laitin, Stephane Lavertu, Daniel Masterson, Durgesh Pathak, Vijayendra Rao,Cyrus Samii, David Stasavage, Milan Vaishnav, and seminar participants at Gothenburg, ISI Delhi, Lahore School of Economics, NYU, Wisconsin-Madison, MPSA, OSU, Oxford, and Uppsala for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Saad Gulzar

  2. Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Nicholas Haas

  3. New York, USA

    Benjamin Pasquale

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  1. Saad Gulzar
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Correspondence to Saad Gulzar .

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  1. Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

    Ashwini Deshpande

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Gulzar, S., Haas, N., Pasquale, B. (2023). Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas. In: Deshpande, A. (eds) Handbook on Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4016-9_51-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4016-9_51-1

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  1. Latest

    Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas
    Published:
    28 May 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4016-9_51-2

  2. Original

    Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas
    Published:
    25 April 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4016-9_51-1

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