Who has voice in a deliberative democracy? Evidence from transcripts of village parliaments in south India
Abstract: The role of deliberation among citizens to determine and forge agreement on policy is often seen as a crucial feature of democratic government. This paper provides the first large-N empirical evidence on the credibility of voice in a deliberative democracy in an non-laboratory setting, usi...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Development Economics Vol. 99; no. 2; pp. 428 - 439 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier B.V.
Nov2012
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=78281763&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 78281763 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03043878 JDE jtl: Journal of Development Economics issn: 03043878 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2012 vid: 99 iid: 2 pid: 1004 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 78281763 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2012.05.005 ppf: 428 ppct: 11 formats: tig: atl: Who has voice in a deliberative democracy? Evidence from transcripts of village parliaments in south India aug: au: Ban, Radu Jha, Saumitra Rao, Vijayendra affil: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States Stanford University, United States World Bank, United States su: South India Deliberative democracy Legislative bodies Government policy Empirical research Public goods Gram sabha Acquisition of data sug: subj: Deliberative democracy Legislative bodies Government policy Empirical research Public goods South India Legislative Bodies Gram sabha Acquisition of data keyword: Deliberation Democracy India Inequality Local government Deliberation Democracy India Inequality Local government ab: Abstract: The role of deliberation among citizens to determine and forge agreement on policy is often seen as a crucial feature of democratic government. This paper provides the first large-N empirical evidence on the credibility of voice in a deliberative democracy in an non-laboratory setting, using a unique dataset collected from transcripts of deliberation that occurred between January and September 2003 in 127 functioning village parliaments (gram sabhas) in Southern India. We exploit a natural experiment in the arrangement of India''s state borders across ethnolinguistic lines that led exogenously to increased caste fragmentation and a reduced degree of consensus on public goods priorities. We then examine the patterns of deliberation. We reject the presence of pure cheap talk in both heterogeneous and homogeneous villages. Instead, we show that in caste‐fragmented South Indian villages, where there is less village-wide agreement on the relative importance of different public goods, the probability of an individual''s highest priority being discussed increases as the household becomes more credible: its preferences approach the pivotal agent in a pure representative democracy, the median household. These effects are lower in ethnically homogeneous villages where there is greater consensus on the prioritization of public goods. Taken together, our results suggest that India''s village parliaments, rather than being mere talking shops or being entirely captured by elites, seem instead to be both democratically representative and to be assigning roles to credible agents in their deliberative processes. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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