Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:27:11.893Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Party Linkages and Economic Policy: An Examination of Indira Gandhi's India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles Robert Hankla
Charles Robert Hankla*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We know from observation that some democracies intervene deeply in their domestic economies while others adopt a more laissez faire approach. Can we explain these differences solely with ideology, or are other political influences also at work? I argue in this paper that elected leaders sometimes opt for hefty economic regulation purely to generate sources of patronage that can be used to maintain their political positions. Leaders are most tempted to take this approach, I contend, when their political parties are not stably linked to sources of electoral support. Unstably linked governing parties will tend to have very short time horizons, focusing on the immediate objective of avoiding massive vote losses in the next election. As a result, they will be less concerned with the potential future damage that a patronage-based policy may inflict on the national economy. I find support for this argument with a close examination of Indian economic policy under Indira Gandhi. Prime Minister Gandhi, I contend, increased the Indian state's control over trade, industrial production, and credit allocation just as the Congress Party's linkages to the electorate were destabilizing.

Keywords

political partiesIndiaeconomic policyprocess tracing
Type
Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , December 2006 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2006 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agrawal, Pradeep, Gokarn, Subir V., Mishra, Veena, Parikh, Kirit S., and Sen, Kunal. 2000. Policy Regimes and Industrial Competitiveness. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). 1969. Fiftieth Annual Report.Google Scholar
Bardhan, Pranab. 1984. The Political Economy of Development in India. New York: Basil Blackwell Publisher.Google Scholar
Bhagwati, Jagdish and Srinivasan, T. N. 1975. Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: India. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research and Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bhargava, P. K. 1985. Transfer of Revenue Resources from the Centre to the States. In Regional Structure of Development and Growth in India. edited by Mishra, G. P. Dehli: Ashis.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 1994. The Politics of India Since Independence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chhibber, Pradeep K. 1999. Democracy Without Associations: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Chhibber, Pradeep K. and Petrocik, John R. 1990. Social Cleavages, Elections, and the Indian Party System. In Diversity and Dominance in Indian Politics, Vol. 1. edited by Sisson, Richard and Roy, Ramashray. New Dehli: 1990.Google Scholar
Chibber, Vivek. 2003. Locked in Place: State Building and Late Industrialization in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Corbridge, Stuart and Harriss, John. 2000. Reinventing India. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Dagli, Vadilal, ed. 1970. A Profile of Indian Industry. Bombay: Vora.Google Scholar
Dhar, P. N. 2003. Evolution of Indian Economic Policy, Selected Essays. New Dehli: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. New York: John Wiley & Sons, InC. Google Scholar
Frankel, Francine. 1978. India's Political Economy, 1947–1977. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
George, K. K. 1985. Inter-State Disparities in Plan Outlay. In Regional Structure of Development and Growth in India. edited by Mishra, G. P. Dehli: Ashis.Google Scholar
Government of India, ed. 1958. Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches, Volume 3. Dehli: Government of India.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan and Kaufman, Robert R. 1995. The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan and Webb, Steven B. 1994. Introduction. In Voting for Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment. edited by Haggard, Stephen and Webb, Steven B. New York: Oxford University Press and the World Bank.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A. 2003. Adapting Methodology to Ontology in Comparative Politics. The Political Economist XI: 1, 1–7.Google Scholar
Hankla, Charles. Forthcoming. Party Strength and International Trade: A Cross-National Analysis. Comparative Political Studies. Google Scholar
Hankla, Charles. 2006. Parties and Patronage: A Comparative Analysis of the Indian Case. Paper prepared for presentation at the annual convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego, California, 2006.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Rob. 1999. Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jin, Youngjae. 1995. Testing Political Party Institutionalization: A Theory and Practice: Journal of Political and Military Sociology 23: 43–63.Google Scholar
Joshi, Vijay and Little, I. M.D. 1994. India: Macroeconomics and Political Economy, 1964–1991. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Keech, William R. and Pak, Kyoungsan. 1995. Partisanship, Institutions, and Change in American Trade Politics. The Journal of Politics 57 (4): 1130–1142.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O. and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert, Manfieldova, Zdenka, Markowski, Radoslaw, and Tóka, Gábor. 1999. Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation New York: Cambidge University Press.Google Scholar
Kochanek, Stanley A. 1968. The Congress Party of India: The Dynamics of One-Party Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kochanek, Stanley A. 1974. Business and Politics in India. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kochanek, Stanley A. 1976. Mrs. Gandhi's Pyramid: The New Congress. In Indira Gandhi's India: A Political System Reappraised. edited by Hart, Henry C. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Kohli, Atul. 1990. Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Goverability. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kohli, Atul. 2004. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kothari, Rajni. 1964. The Congress ‘System’ in India. Asian Survey 4 (12): 1161–73.Google Scholar
Kothari, Rajni. 1975. Continuity and Change in the Party System. In Citizens and Parties: Aspects of Competitive Politics in India. edited by Sheth, D. L. New Dehli: Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Kudaisya, Medha M. 2002. ‘Reforms by Stealth’: Indian Economic Policy, Big Business and the Promise of the Shastri Years, 1964–1966. South Asia 25 (2): 205–230.Google Scholar
Kudaisya, Medha M. 2003. The Life and Times of G. D. Birla. New Dehli: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, John P. 1997. India's Political Economy: Governance and Reform. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2003. Strategies of Causal Assessment in Comparative Historical Analysis. In Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. edited by Mahoney, James and Rueschemeyer, Dietrich. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1999. Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott and Scully, Timothy R. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Manor, James. 1988. Parties and the Party System. In India's Democracy: Changing State-Society Relations. edited by Kohli, Atul. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Manor, James. 1992. The State of Governance. In Foundations of India's Political Economy. edited by Roy, Subroto and James, William E. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D. and Busch, Marc L. 1995. The Political Economy of Non-Tariff Barriers: a Cross-National Analysis. International Organization 49 (4): 723–49.Google Scholar
Mitra, Subrata K. 1994. Party Organization and Policy Making in a Changing Environment: The Indian National Congress. In How Political Parties Work. edited by Lawson, Kay. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Mitra, Subrata K. and Singh, V. B. 1999. Democracy and Social Change in India. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Mukherji, Rahul. 2000. India's Aborted Liberalization-1966. Pacific Affairs 73 (3): 375–392.Google Scholar
Neumann, Sigmund. 1956. Towards a Comparative Study of Political Parties. In Modern Political Parties: Approaches to Comparative Politics. edited by Neumann, Sigmund. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Oatley, Thomas. 1999. How Constraining is Mobile Capital? The Partisan Hypothesis in an Open Economy. American Journal of Political Science 43 (4): 1002–27.Google Scholar
O'Halloran, Sharyn. 1994. Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy. Ann Arbor: The University of Michagen Press.Google Scholar
Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organization and Power. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Patel, I. G. 2002. Glimpses of Indian Economic Policy: An Insider's View. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2004. Politics in Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul - and Skocpol, Theda. 2002. Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science. Political Science: The State of the Discipline. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, pp. 693–721.Google Scholar
Perotti, Roberto and Kontopoulos, Yianos. 2002. Fragmented Fiscal Policy. Journal of Public Economic 86: 191–222.Google Scholar
Planning Commission, Government of India. 1956. Second Five Year Plan.Google Scholar
Planning Commission, Government of India. 1970. Fourth Five Year Plan, 1969–74.Google Scholar
Rai, Haridwar and Pandey, Jawahar Lal. 1971. Intra-Party Democracy: The Experience of the Indian National Congress. In Indian Political Parties: Programmes, Promises, and Performance. edited by Singhvi, L. M., Kashyap, Subhash, and Sharma, J. P. Dehli: The Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, and Research Publications in the Social Sciences.Google Scholar
Randall, Vicky and Svasand, Lars. 2002. Party Institutionalization in New Democracies. Party Politics 8 (1): 5–29.Google Scholar
Rogowski, Ronald. 1987. Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions. International Organization 41 (2): 202–223.Google Scholar
Rudolph, Lloyd I. and Hoeber Rudolph, Susanne. 1987. In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sengupta, Nitish K. 1995. Inside the Steel Frame: Reminiscences and Reflections of a Former Civil Servant. New Dehli: Vikas Publishing House.Google Scholar
Sengupta, Somini. 2006. On India's Disappearing Farms, a Plague of Suicide. New York Times. September 19.Google Scholar
Singh, Mahendra Prasad. 1981. Split in a Predominant Party. New Dehli: Shakti Malik.Google Scholar
Singh, V. B. and Bose, Shankar. 1986. Elections in India: Data Handbook on Lok Sabha Elections, 1952–85. New Dehli: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Stone, Brewer Stevenson. 1994. Governmental Corruption in China and India. Unpublished Dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, T. N. 1992. Planning and Foreign Trade Reconsidered. In Foundations of India's Political Economy. edited by Roy, Subroto and James, William E. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Srivastava, D. K., Bhujanga Rao, C., Pinaki Chakraborty, T. S. Rangamannar. 2003. Budgetary Subsidies in India. New Dehli: National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.Google Scholar
Sudhanshu, S. N. T. 1986. Industrial Licensing Policy and Growth of Industries in India. New Dehli: Deep and Deep.Google Scholar
Thimmaiah, G. 1985. Inter-State Disparities in Financial Allocations. In Regional Structure of Development and Growth in India. edited by Mishra, G. P. Dehli: Ashis.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 1995. Democracy, Development, and the Countryside. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Volkerink, Bjørn and de Haan, Jakob. 2001. Fragmented Government Effects of Fiscal Policy: New Evidence. Public Choice 109: 221–242.Google Scholar
Walner, David. 1999. State Building and Late Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Myron. 1967. Party Building in a New Nation: The Indian National Congress. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Myron. 1989. The 1971 Elections: India's Changing Party System. In The Indian Paradox: Essays in Indian Politics. edited by Varshney, Ashutosh. New Dehli: Sage.Google Scholar
Zaidi, A. M., ed. 1984. Aloud and Straight: Frank Talks at Party Meetings. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research.Google Scholar