Regionalization and Institutionalization: Dimensions of Multi-level Party System Change in India Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg vorgelegt von Malte Pehl, M.A. Geboren in Stade Erstgutachter: Prof. Subrata K. Mitra, Ph.D. (Rochester, U.S.A.) Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Aurel Croissant Heidelberg, 2010 © Malte Pehl DEDICATIO This work is dedicated to my parents, Klaus-Dieter and Elisabeth Pehl without whose encouragement, support and love it would have never been started. And it is dedicated to my wife Aruni whose belief, devotion and love saw it through to its completion. 2 ACKOWLEDGEMETS First of all, I would like to thank to my advisor, Professor Subrata Mitra whose scholarship first sparked my interest in pursuing a doctorate and in Indian politics. His support, example and his intellectual guidance have since then helped me to better understand politics and to hopefully become a better scholar in the process. Each of these qualities is only surpassed by his friendship and loyalty as a mentor for which I am equally grateful. I would also like to thank my second reader, Professor Aurel Croissant whose teaching and work on comparative and Asian politics I benefitted from tremendously since I first arrived in Heidelberg and whose writings have since then continuously motivated me to become a better writer myself. A debt of gratitude is also owed to Professors Russell Dalton and Bernard Grofman who were kind enough to offer me the hospitality of the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine and a chance to engage in inspiring conversations on elections, parties and party systems and to teach comparative politics during two stays there in the course of my doctoral studies. During the years since I became interested in the study of Indian party politics, three other people, in different ways, have shaped my engagement with it and with the profession. Alexander Fischer will always have my greatest gratitude for first sparking my interest in studying India professionally since our time in Werner Menski’s awe-inspiring classroom sessions in London and my respect for reminding me often of the ennobling aspects of our profession during times when that nobility seemed farthest from the realities of everyday life. Clemens Spiess has been an inspiration on both a personal and professional level through his enthusiasm for Asian and African party politics and through his encylopedic knowledge on which I had the good fortune to be able to draw on many occasions. Steven Weldon through his role-model scholarship has likewise shaped not only my outlook on parties and elections but also motivated me to give academia in the United States a try. I am as grateful for their tireless encouragement and good fellowship through the years in Heidelberg and abroad as I am for that of Anja Kluge and Jaswinder Kaur without whose laughter the entire process would have been much less enjoyable. Ursula Schmitt-Köhler deserves many thanks for lending more helping hands than Kali herself during my stay at the South Asia Institute and since then. I am grateful to the World Values Survey project for access to their data on the latest four waves of surveys on India and other countries from 1990 to 2006. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi for hosting me during a field stay in India 2005-06 and to the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg for funding to enable me to facilitate that stay. Charleston, South Carolina, January 2010 Malte Pehl 3 Table of Contents List of Tables 6 List of Figures 7 List of Maps 8 Abbreviations 9 1. Introduction 11 1.1 The Study of Indian Politics 17 1.2 Region and Nation in the Study of Politics 19 1.2.1 Regionalization's relevance to politics generally 19 1.2.2 The debate about regionalization of politics in advanced Western democracies 22 1.3 The Design of the Study 24 2. Conceptual and Theoretical Aspects of the Study 27 2.1 Regionalization of Party Politics – Two Views 28 2.1.1 The Socio-structural Perspective 29 2.1.2 The Organizational-Institutional Perspective 31 2.2 The Importance of Party System Institutionalization 33 2.3 Terminology 38 2.3.1 Parties 38 2.3.2 Party Systems 40 2.3.3 Regionalization 40 2.3.4 Regional Parties 41 2.3.5 A Note on Alternative Terminology 44 2.3.6 Institutionalization 48 2.4 Regionalization in Indian Party and Electoral Politics: Relevance and Literature 51 2.5 Institutionalization in Indian Party and Electoral Politics: Relevance and Literature 55 2.6 Theoretical Framework of the Study 57 2.7 An Alternative Approach to Understanding Party Choice in Federal Systems 61 2.7.1 Rich Regions 63 2.7.2 Poor Regions 64 2.7.3 Empirical Implications 65 2.8 Subnational Comparison, Case Selection and Time Frame of the Study 67 2.8.1 Level of Analysis. 67 2.8.2 Case Selection. 70 2.8.3 Time Period. 71 3. The Institutional Framework and Socioeconomic Context of Multi-level Politics in India 74 3.1 India’s Federal Political System 75 3.2 Evolution of Federalism: The Changing Nature of Center-State Relations 81 3.2.1 Historical Phases of Evolving Center-State-Relations 82 3.2.2 Fiscal Federalism and Center-State Relations 83 3.3 Linguistic Diversity Across Regions 86 3.4 Religious Diversity Across Regions 91 3.5 Economic and Developmental Diversity Across Regions 95 4 4. The Institutionalization of Party Systems 99 4.1 Conceptualizing and Hypothesizing Institutionalization 100 4.2 Data and Measurement 104 4.2.1 Partyness of Politics. 104 4.2.2 Organizational Continuity. 105 4.2.3 Rootedness. 107 4.3 System-level Perspectives 108 4.3.1 Partyness – The Role of Independents 108 4.3.2 Rootedness- Volatility 110 4.4 Individual-level Perspectives 112 4.4.1 Partyness – The Role of Trust 112 4.4.2 Rootedness – Assessing Individual-level Volatility 113 4.5 A Panorama of Party System Institutionalization: Four Cases 115 4.5.1 Background 115 4.5.2 Partyness – The Role of Trust and of Independents 122 4.5.3 Organizational Continuity 124 4.5.4 Rootedness – System-level Volatility 126 4.6 Discussion 127 5. The Regionalization of Party Systems 132 5.1 Regional Identity in the Mirror of Public Opinion 133 5.2 Measuring Regionalization of Party Politics 135 5.3 Regional Differences in Regionalization of Party and Electoral Politics 136 5.4 Hypotheses 139 5.4.1 Macro-level Hypotheses 139 5.4.2 Micro-level Hypotheses 142 5.5 Correlates of Regionalization of Elections: The Aggregate Picture 143 5.5.1 Data and Measurement 144 5.5.2 Analysis 144 5.6 Who Wants to Regionalize? A Profile of Regional Identity and Party Support 148 5.6.1 The Social Characteristics of Regional Party Supporters 148 5.6.2 The Views of Regional Party Supporters on Politics 152 5.6.3. One-way Ticket? The Compatibility of Regional and National Party Support 154 6. An Extension: The Consequences of Party System Change at the National Level 158 6.1 The Context of National Elections 160 6.2 Wagging the Dog: The Impact of Regional Parties at the National Level 164 6.3 Numerical Strength, Power and Influence of Parties in Coalitions 170 6.4 Power, Office and Government Formation Since 1998 175 6.4.1 The Twelfth Lok Sabha Period, 1998 to 1999 176 6.4.2 The Thirteenth Lok Sabha Period, 1999 to 2004 180 6.4.3 The Fourteenth Lok Sabha Period, 2004 to 2009 184 6.5 Summary 187 7. Conclusion 190 8. Appendices 194 9. Bibliography 208 5 List of Tables Table 2.1: Party Age and Party System Institutionalization – A Conceptual Overview 49 Table 3.1: Constitutional Allocation of Important Legislative Competences 76 Table 3.2: Typology of Power-sharing Arrangements in Multi-level Systems 78 Table 3.3: Key Figures of Center-State Fiscal Relations 84 Table 3.4: Major Languages in India (Census of India 2001) 88 Table 3.5: States/UTs/NCTs and their Main Languages 89 Table 3.6: Religious Communities in India (Census of India 2001) 92 Table 3.7: Religious Diversity across Twenty-five Regions 93 Table 3.8: Economic and Developmental Diversity across India’s States (2000-2001) 96 Table 4.1: Fragmentation and Institutionalization of Russian and British Party Systems 107 Table 4.2: Independent Candidates’ Average Vote Shares in State Elections (1977-2000) 109 Table 4.3: Changes in Volatility across the Indian States 110 Table 4.4: Confidence in Political Parties and Other Institutions 112 Table 4.5: Vote Share of Independent Candidates and the Effective Number of Parties 124 Table 4.6: Electoral Availability in Four States (1980-2000) 126 Table 4.7: Inter-election Volatility in Four States 127 Table 4.8: Levels of Institutionalization across Four States 129 Table 5.1: Bivariate Correlations of the Non-national Vote 145 Table 5.2: Partial Correlations of the Non-national Vote 145 Table 5.3: Summary of Aggregate Findings 148 Table 5.4: Social Backgrounds of Regional Partisans 151 Table 5.5: Political Views of Regional Party Supporters 153 Table 5.6: The Relationship between First and Second Party Preference (1990) 155 Table 5.7: The Relationship between First and Second Party Preference (1995) 155 Table 5.8: The Relationship between First and Second Party Preference (2001) 155 Table 5.9: The Relationship between First and Second Party Preference (2006) 156 Table 5.10: The Relationship between First Party Preference and Party Aversion (1995) 156 Table 5.11: The Relationship between First Party Preference and Party Aversion (2001) 157 Table 5.12: The Relationship between First Party Preference and Party Aversion (2006) 157 Table 6.1: Turnout in the General Elections (1952-2004) 160 Table 6.2: Party-wise Breakdown of the 1977 General Election 161 Table 6.3: Electoral Success of the Indian National Congress (1952-2004) 162 Table 6.4: Main Competitors for Power in the General Elections (1952-2004) 162 Table 6.5: Index of Opposition Unity, Lok Sabha Elections 1962-1991 164 Table 6.6: Lok Sabha Elections: Vote/Seat Shares of ational Parties (1952-2004) 167 Table 6.7: Seat Distribution and Banzhaf Values in the Sixth Bundestag (1969-1972) 172 Tab.