Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 13
Economic Evaluations and the Incumbent Vote
in India’s Parliamentary Elections (2014, 2019) 1
Siddharth Swaminathan
Indian Politics & Policy • Vol. 3, No. 1 • Spring 2020
Professor of Political Science at the School of Policy and Governance,
Azim Premji University.
[email protected]
Abstract
In this article, I empirically evaluate a hypothesis broadly referred
to as the economic vote (or economic voting) in political science
scholarship in the context of the 2014 and 2019 elections to the
Lok Sabha. The economic vote hypothesis considers the relationship
between a voter’s retrospective evaluation of their personal or
household economic condition and their vote choice for an incumbent.
I apply a logistic regression model to individual level data
from the National Election Study (NES) post-poll surveys in order
to examine this relationship while controlling for the influence of
relevant factors such as incumbent party attachment (or partisanship)
and the effects of time, among others. I find that a voter’s
positive evaluation of household economic conditions increases
the likelihood of a vote for the incumbent. Conversely, a voter’s
negative evaluation of household economic conditions lowers the
likelihood of a vote for the incumbent. The effect of a negative evaluation
on incumbent vote choice is stronger than that of a positive
evaluation. I also find that the effect of a positive evaluation was
stable over the past two elections and that of a negative evaluation
increased in magnitude in 2019 relative to 2014. Finally, I find that
attachment to an incumbent party or coalition has a strong positive
effect on the incumbent vote, and that the likelihood a voter
chooses an incumbent in 2019 is also higher. An analysis of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vote in 2019 reveals that, in addition
to economic evaluations and partisanship, socio-demographic factors
such as caste-community identity also play an important role.
All Hindu caste groups tend to vote for the BJP relative to other religious
communities and castes. The effects of other economic and
demographic characteristics, such as class, rurality, and gender, are
smaller or nonexistent.
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doi: 10.18278/inpp.3.1.3