November 17, 2021
Why do elites encourage violence?
Key empirical implications:
What enables elites to foment/stop violence? In India…
Berenschot (2011):
Ethnic parties have motive to foment violence when elections are competitive and opportunity to foment violence
Non-ethnic parties have motive to reduce violence and opportunity to reduce violence when they hold office
Berenschot (2011):
In Ahmedabad (Gujarat) during 2002 riots:
Key empirical implications:
Wilkinson (2004) looks at riots in towns in Uttar Pradesh
In small groups:
Heightened ethnic tensions for another reason (e.g., nationalist propaganda, prior violence, etc.)
Hard to know that competition causes riots to be more likely.
Key empirical implications:
How would we know whether riots benefit ethnic / hurt non-ethnic parties at the polls?
Nellis et al (2016) find that riot in the year prior to an election…
Iyer and Shrivastava (2018) exploit “as-if random” riots to find the effect of riots on BJP (ethnic party) voteshare:
Key empirical implications:
Nellis et al(2016) find that:
Does electing a Congress MLA cause a constituency to have fewer riots?
How would we know whether Congress MLAs stop riots?
Nellis et al (2016) focus on places with random exposure to Congress MLA:
Key empirical implications:
Questions remain: