Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:01:08.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Association of Electoral Volatility and Religious Riots in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Prashant Hosur Suhas Open the ORCID record for Prashant Hosur Suhas [Opens in a new window]  and
Vasabjit Banerjee Open the ORCID record for Vasabjit Banerjee [Opens in a new window]
Prashant Hosur Suhas
Affiliation:
Clarkson University
Vasabjit Banerjee*
Affiliation:
Mississippi State University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Vasabjit Banerjee, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why are religious riots between Hindus and Muslims endemic in some states of India and not in others? Scholarship on the topic is divided between those arguing that electoral competition increases the occurrence of such riots and those arguing that electoral competition decreases the occurrence of such riots. Both types of explanations assume a relationship between political parties and religious violence, but they ignore voting behavior. This paper accounts for party system instability or change, measured in terms of electoral volatility, to argue that electoral volatility in the Indian party system is a key overlooked determinant of religious violence. Specifically, higher levels of electoral volatility, implying high switching of party allegiances by voters, may indicate the process of ethnic outbidding that causes violence.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 787 - 808
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

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

Allison, Paul D. 2014. Event History and Survival Analysis. California: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartolini, Stefano, and Mair, Peter. 1990. Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates 1885–1985. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, and Katz, Jonathan N.. 1995. “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (3):634–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birnir, Johanna Kristin. 2006. Ethnicity and Electoral Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bohlken, Anjali, and Sergenti, Ernest. 2010. “Economic Growth and Ethnic Violence: An Empirical Investigation of Hindu-Muslim Riots in India.” Journal of Peace Research 47 (5):589–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 2003. “Explaining Communal Violence,” The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2005. “Ethnic Parties and Domestic Stability.” Perspectives on Politics 3 (2):235–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Frank S. 1997. “Proportional versus Majoritarian Ethnic Conflict Management in Democracies.” Comparative Political Studies 30 (5):607–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeVotta, Neil. 2005. “From Ethnic Outbidding to Ethnic Conflict?” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11 (1):141–159.Google Scholar
Dhattiwala, Rahell, and Biggs, Michael. 2012. “The Political Logic of Ethnic Violence: The Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Gujarat, 2002.” Politics and Society 40 (4):483–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunleavy, Patrick, and Boucek, Francoise. 2003. “Constructing the Number of Parties.” Party Politics 9 (3):291–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engineer, Asghar A. 1991. “Communal Riots before, during and after Lok Sabha Elections.” Economic and Political Weekly 26 (37):2135–2138.Google Scholar
Feree, Karen E. 2010. “The Social Origins of Electoral Volatility in Africa.” British Journal of Political Science 40 (4):759–799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Government of India. Indian Election Commission. Election Results. http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/ElectionStatistics.aspx.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya Khaliq. 1982. “Communalism and Communal Violence in India.” Social Scientist 10 (2):25–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ishiyama, John. 2009. “Do Ethnic Parties Promote Minority Ethnic Conflict?” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 15(1):56–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyer, Sriya, and Srivastava, Anand. 2018. “Religious Riots and Electoral Politics in India.” Journal of Development Economics 131:104–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, Markku, and Taagepera, Rein. 1979. “Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12 (1):3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madrid, Raul. 2005. “Ethnic Cleavages and Electoral Volatility in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 38:1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitra, Anirban, and Ray, Debraj. 2014. “Implications of an Economic Theory of Conflict: Hindu-Muslim Violence in India.” Journal of Political Economy 122 (4):719–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mozaffar, Shaheen, Scarritt, James R., and Galaich, Glenn. 2019. “Electoral Institutions, Ethnopolitical Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa's Emerging Democracies.” American Political Science Review 97 (3):379–390.Google Scholar
Nellis, Gareth, Weaver, Michael, and Rosenzweig, Steven C.. 2014. “Do Parties Matter for Ethnic Violence? Evidence from.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 11 (3):249–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nikolenyi, Csaba 1998. The New Indian Party System: What Kind of a Model? Party Politics 4 (3):367–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, Mogens N. 1979. “The Dynamics of European Party Systems: Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility”. European Journal of Political Research 7 (1–2):83–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabushka, Alvin, and Shepsle, Kenneth. 1972. Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Ruhe, Constantin. (2016). “Estimating Survival Functions after Stcox with Time-Varying Coefficients.” The Stata Journal 16 (4):867–879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 2000. From Voting to Violence. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Vaishnav, Milan, and Hintson, Jaime. 2019 “The Dawn of India's Fourth Party System.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Working Paper (September 2019). https://carnegieendowment.org/files/201909-VaishnavHintson.pdf.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 2002. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh, and Wilkinson, Steven. 2002. “Varshney Wilkinson Dataset on Hindu Muslim Violence in India, 1950–1995, Ver. 2.” (ICPSR 4342) https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/4342.Google Scholar
Verghese, Ajay. 2016. The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence in India. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Steven. 2004. Votes and Violence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar