Power, exclusion, and identity : the politics of muslim marginalization in India
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- What are the causes and consequences of the political exclusion of marginalized groups? This dissertation studies this question by focusing on the over 200 million Muslims in India, the world's largest democracy. Over the past several decades, India has progressed in the political inclusion of several marginalized groups, including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and women. However, Muslims have experienced no measurable progress and their political and socio-economic condition has deteriorated. Indian Muslims further represent an understudied type of marginalized group: those who do not have institutional protections to help them gain political power. This dissertation studies the origins of the political exclusion of Indian Muslims, when they can break out of this exclusion, and why—even when they break out—they cannot sustain political power. I propose a framework to understand the causes and consequences of Muslim representation that considers how changes among elites and voters from the dominant and marginalized groups can help account for the contours of Muslim political representation in India. First, I theorize that structural factors, political incentives, and party characteristics help explain where, when, and through which parties Muslims can gain representation. Second, I challenge the conventional wisdom that power begets power by arguing that when a Muslim comes to power it can lead to a representation trap where they have a lower likelihood of subsequently winning. I argue that this process is driven by uniting Hindus and dividing Muslims. I test the argument using descriptive and causal analysis of election data across India, an original in-person survey of nearly 5000 Hindu and Muslim voters that contribute to natural and survey experiments, and 150 elite and voter interviews during a combined eight months of in-depth fieldwork. By providing a comprehensive story of Muslim marginalization in India, this project contributes to our understanding of political representation, identity politics, and democracy.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Allie, Feyaad |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Weinstein, Jeremy M |
| Thesis advisor | Weinstein, Jeremy M |
| Thesis advisor | Fearon, James D |
| Thesis advisor | Gulzar, Saad |
| Thesis advisor | Laitin, David D |
| Thesis advisor | Prillaman, Soledad Artiz |
| Degree committee member | Fearon, James D |
| Degree committee member | Gulzar, Saad |
| Degree committee member | Laitin, David D |
| Degree committee member | Prillaman, Soledad Artiz |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Feyaad Allie. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/jq122zn6931 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Feyaad Allie
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