Spatial variation in the "Muslim vote" in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, 2014

In this paper, we propose to reconcile the controversial debate on Muslim “vote banks” in India by shifting the spatial focus from state-wide assessments to the level of constituencies. Taking the example of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general elections, and using an innovative booth-level...

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Published in:Internationales Asien-Forum
Authors: Susewind, Raphael (Author) ; Dhattiwala, Raheel (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Heidelberg Berlin Institution 2014
Freiburg 2014
In: Internationales Asien-Forum
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Summary:In this paper, we propose to reconcile the controversial debate on Muslim “vote banks” in India by shifting the spatial focus from state-wide assessments to the level of constituencies. Taking the example of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general elections, and using an innovative booth-level ecological inference model, we show that Muslims might indeed vote en bloc for or against certain parties, but they tend to do so in a much more localised way than previously assumed. While public Muslim support for the BJP did not translate into electoral support in most places, there are important exceptions to this trend - and at least in the case of Uttar Pradesh, their support for competing parties followed a fairly complex spatial pattern. We further explore this spatial variation in Muslim vote patterns by looking at the moderating impact of minority concentration, violent communal history, and ethnic co-ordination and conclude with a call for more disaggregated research.
ISSN:2365-0117
Contains:Enthalten in: Internationales Asien-Forum
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.11588/iaf.2014.45.3290
URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-iaf-32903