Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Social Sciences Seminar

Abstract: We study how parties choose candidates, a key issue to understand political selection and ultimately policy choices. Do parties select candidates that voters like, or are their choices shaped by other considerations? What is the impact of policies that limit parties' choice sets, such as restrictions on candidates with a criminal history? To study these questions, we combine rich candidate-level data from India with a model in which parties trade off the electoral appeal of candidates against internal party preferences in a strategic game of candidate selection. We find that parties' preferences systematically deviate from voters'. While parties select candidates who are likely to win, all else equal they prefer those who are not overly popular. Selection decisions are also driven by strategic considerations, as well as factors that are independent of voter preferences, such as the ease of recruiting certain candidates. Our estimates provide a nuanced explanation for parties' motivation to run criminal candidates, and, through counterfactual simulations, shed light on the potential impacts of banning criminals from contesting elections.

Joint work with Arvind Magesan and Andrea Szabo.