Environmental Shocks, Electoral Quotas, and Distributive Conflict

Abstract: Do electoral quotas mitigate or exacerbate elite capture under conditions of environmental stress? This project seeks to understand how adverse events interact with political institutions to produce differences in public goods provision and intergroup conflict. Using village-level panel data on public goods provision from the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (REDS) and rainfall data from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), we evaluate if plausibly random electoral quotas mitigate the adverse effects of environmental shocks on local governance and intergroup relations. We anticipate shocks to produce broad-based economic redistribution in seats reserved for members of stigmatized groups, but not in unreserved seats. We also expect reserved seats to experience less intergroup conflict in the aftermath of a shock than unreserved seats. We’re currently analyzing data for this project.