Research
Bureaucratic Discretion Against Female Politicians: Evidence from Telangana, India
Formerly Titled “Laments of Getting Things Done: Bureaucratic Resistance Against Female Politicians in India”
Submitted
Institutional mandates such as quotas have enabled individuals from underrepresented groups to become politicians, yet their competence is routinely questioned. This paper examines how these concerns shape the experiences of one such group, women politicians, vis-à-vis the bureaucracy. Contrary to existing theories which suggest gender biases alone lead to differential treatment of women, I show that bureaucrats’ strategic concerns of women’s low political capital are key to understanding why women face substantively greater bureaucratic resistance with routine policy-related requests than men. Using survey data from women politicians in India, I show that women politicians have fewer upward networks to overcome resistance. Through a survey of bureaucrats, I further show that bureaucrats perceive women to have low competence and low mobilization capacity, two forms of political capital. Taken together, this paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence of how bureaucratic incentives can shape the ability of new groups to perform as politicians.
Manuscript available here, and a podcast version of the paper available here.
Public Financial Management, State Capacity, and Public Services in India
With A. Santhosh Mathew and Devesh Sharma
Manuscript Under Review
Public finance mechanisms are govern how budget allocations trickle down to program implementers for public service delivery. Yet, existing public service delivery literature and state capacity literature do not fully account for how finance mechanisms govern public service delivery. When poorly structured, public finance mechanisms can stall fund flow and create systemic issues that stymie public service delivery. This book outlines these issues that result from a poor public finance management system and offers a comprehensive reform plan for policymakers.
Differential Reactions to Survey Incentives: A Comparative Assessment?
With Katharine Conn and Cecilia H. Mo
Manuscript submitted, available upon request
Do survey incentives that improve response rates in the United States and the Global North perform just as well in other countries? Studies on web survey recruitment have largely come to a conclusion that monetary incentives recruit a higher share of respondents than non-monetary responses. Though these findings largely come from the U.S. or Europe, scholars in other regions have relied on similar monetary incentives such as gifts or lotteries to recruit respondents. We test the assumption that monetary incentives are effective across cultures by running an incentives experiment in Australia, India, and the United States amongst a similar population of pro-social individuals in each country. We find that monetary incentives are effective in the U.S. and Australia, but Indians respond more frequently to charity appeals or descriptive appeals. An additional dictator game corroborates this finding, showing that Indians are much more likely to donate potential lottery winnings to charity than individuals from other countries. Our results suggests that incentives that have worked in Western settings cannot be transported to other settings without prior testing and a careful consideration of the cultural or socioeconomic context of a country.
Do women politicians’ personal characteristics matter in India?: Results from a conjoint experiment
Working Paper, available upon request
In countries that regard marriage to be of high importance, why do we see so many unmarried or widowed female candidates? To test whether this is a result of demand-based effects, I test this puzzle through a large-scale conjoint experiment in India. I find that though research to date suggests voters prefer married female candidates, voters in the urban Indian setting are indifferent to women's marital status. Rather, voters overwhelmingly decide on female candidates based on their party affiliation, along with dynastic status and profession.
Sterilization and Women's Political Participation
With Pradeep Chhibber, Megan Morris, and Anvita Kulshrestha
Manuscript submitted, available upon request
In patriarchal societies, intrahousehold dynamics constrain women's political participation. We use sterilization, a procedure that requires intrahousehold agreement and joint decision-making between a wife and her spouse, to understand how women's ability to participate outside of the household changes after the procedure. Using individual-level panel data on women's sterilization from India, we find that women who undergo this form of contraception are more likely to participate in political activities such as self-help groups, savings groups, and political parties. We attribute this to an expansion in women's ability to contribute economically to the household, as evidenced by her increased likelihood to participate in wage employment after sterilization. Our finding suggests that increased female political participation can result from changes in women's perceived role in the household, and subsequently, her political participation.
Work in Progress
Do peer mentorship groups increase the political agency of first-time female politicians?
With Rachel Brulé , Simon Chauchard, and Alyssa Heinzeaheinze.github.io/
Project summary available upon request.
Does training expand bureaucratic and political networks of female politicians?
With Rachel Brulé , Simon Chauchard, and Alyssa Heinze
Gendered Representation in The Indian Administrative Service.
With Tiffany Barnes, Jennifer Bussell, and Nick Kuipers