Adam Ziegfeld
Biographic Data
| ID | 1066307 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam Ziegfeld |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam |
| FAMILY NAME | Ziegfeld |
| SIGNATURE | ZIEGFELD A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Temple University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6857-1286 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 108 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
When Does Electoral Cooperation End? How Relative Changes in Popular Support Undermine Election Alliances in India
Political parties around the world form election alliances in which they field common candidates or joint party lists. Once such alliances have formed, what prompts them to end? Existing perspectives suggest that alliances end when allied parties diverge ideologically or the alliance no longer provides parties with electoral benefit. We suggest a different rationale: changes in allies’ relative electoral strength. When one ally becomes relatively…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
Varieties of Electoral Dominance
Dominant political parties rule for prolonged periods of time by winning successive multiparty elections. However, the term "dominant party" encompasses an extremely diverse set of parties, ranging from ones winning unremarkable vote shares in established democracies to those garnering massive popular majorities in free but unfair elections. To grapple with such heterogeneity, this article proposes a three-part typology based on the foundations o…
Why So Little Strategic Voting in India
Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger's Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world's most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger's Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show th…
The Authoritarian Origins of Dominant Parties in Democracies
What accounts for Duverger's law? The behavioral mechanisms underpinning two-party convergence in India
A new dominant party in India? Putting the 2019 BJP victory into comparative and historical perspective
The 2019 Indian national election delivered a convincing victory to the BJP and, along with it, prognostications of future BJP election wins. The BJP’s victory was certainly impressive, but does it portend a prolonged period of BJP rule at the national level? As of 2019, any predictions of the BJP’s long-term dominance are premature. The election revealed that the BJP possesses relatively few of the party-system advantages common to other dominan…
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
Ethnic Parties in New Democracies
Social Cleavages, Party Organization, and the End of Single-Party Dominance
When do electorally dominant parties lose power in democracies? Drawing on the experiences of India's states during the period of Indian National Congress dominance, we argue that single-party dominance is less likely to endure under two conditions: first, when one of the opposition parties possesses a longstanding and robust party organization and, second, when there is a single social cleavage dividing the political class into two main cleavage…
Alliance Politics Amid the BJP’s Rise
Pre-election alliances have long figured prominently in Indian elections. Has the politics surrounding pre-election alliances changed with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? This article analyzes patterns of election alliance formation across India’s states and examines the extent to which these alliances affected the outcome of the 2019 election. It finds that patterns of alliance formation in the run-up to the 2019 election did not, …
Electoral Systems in Context
Throughout its history, India has employed first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral rules for nearly all of its legislative elections. Though India uses a relatively common set of electoral rules, three features of India’s FPTP electoral system stand out. First, India’s election constituencies exhibit persistent malapportionment, even after a recent redrawing of constituency boundaries. Second, India mandates representation for historically disadvant…
Electoral Volatility and Turnout
High levels of electoral volatility are common in new and developing-world democracies. In this article, we examine the implications of electoral volatility—more specifically, party entry and exit—on voter turnout. We hypothesize that new party entry should be associated with increases in turnout, as new parties mobilize previously apathetic voters through new party organizations and networks of canvassers. Further, we hypothesize that existing p…
How opposition parties sustain single-party dominance
When elections are free and fair, why do some political parties rule for prolonged periods of time? Most explanations for single-party dominance focus on the dominant party’s origins, resources, or strategies. In this article, we show how opposition parties can undermine or sustain single-party dominance. Specifically, opposition parties should be central in explaining single-party dominance in countries with highly disproportional electoral syst…
Democratic Dynasties
Dynastic politics, usually presumed to be the antithesis of democracy, is a routine aspect of politics in many modern democracies. This book introduces a new theoretical perspective on dynasticism in democracies, using original data on twenty-first-century Indian parliaments. It argues that the roots of dynastic politics lie at least in part in modern democratic institutions - states and parties - which give political families a leg-up in the ele…
Socioeconomic status and corruption perceptions around the world
Why do citizens vary in their perceptions about the frequency of corruption? We hypothesize that those most harmed by corruption—the socioeconomically disadvantaged—should perceive corruption to be more frequent. Using multiple cross-national surveys, we find that the poor and the uneducated tend to perceive higher levels of corruption than the wealthy and the well educated. However, this relationship only holds in countries at high levels of eco…
Candidate Characteristics in Indian Elections
Are certain kinds of candidates more likely to do better in elections than others? Using a unique dataset on the characteristics of candidates in elections in the north Indian state of Haryana, this study finds that certain candidate characteristics are associated with greater vote shares
Are higher-magnitude electoral districts always better for small parties
Coalition Government and Party System Change
How opposition parties sustain single-party dominance
When elections are free and fair, why do some political parties rule for prolonged periods of time? Most explanations for single-party dominance focus on the dominant party’s origins, resources, or strategies. In this article, we show how opposition parties can undermine or sustain single-party dominance. Specifically, opposition parties should be central in explaining single-party dominance in countries with highly disproportional electoral syst…
Coalition Government and Party System Change
Are higher-magnitude electoral districts always better for small parties
Electoral Volatility and Turnout
High levels of electoral volatility are common in new and developing-world democracies. In this article, we examine the implications of electoral volatility—more specifically, party entry and exit—on voter turnout. We hypothesize that new party entry should be associated with increases in turnout, as new parties mobilize previously apathetic voters through new party organizations and networks of canvassers. Further, we hypothesize that existing p…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
Social Cleavages, Party Organization, and the End of Single-Party Dominance
When do electorally dominant parties lose power in democracies? Drawing on the experiences of India's states during the period of Indian National Congress dominance, we argue that single-party dominance is less likely to endure under two conditions: first, when one of the opposition parties possesses a longstanding and robust party organization and, second, when there is a single social cleavage dividing the political class into two main cleavage…
Socioeconomic status and corruption perceptions around the world
Why do citizens vary in their perceptions about the frequency of corruption? We hypothesize that those most harmed by corruption—the socioeconomically disadvantaged—should perceive corruption to be more frequent. Using multiple cross-national surveys, we find that the poor and the uneducated tend to perceive higher levels of corruption than the wealthy and the well educated. However, this relationship only holds in countries at high levels of eco…
Why So Little Strategic Voting in India
Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger's Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world's most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger's Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show th…
What accounts for Duverger's law? The behavioral mechanisms underpinning two-party convergence in India
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
Candidate Characteristics in Indian Elections
Are certain kinds of candidates more likely to do better in elections than others? Using a unique dataset on the characteristics of candidates in elections in the north Indian state of Haryana, this study finds that certain candidate characteristics are associated with greater vote shares
A new dominant party in India? Putting the 2019 BJP victory into comparative and historical perspective
The 2019 Indian national election delivered a convincing victory to the BJP and, along with it, prognostications of future BJP election wins. The BJP’s victory was certainly impressive, but does it portend a prolonged period of BJP rule at the national level? As of 2019, any predictions of the BJP’s long-term dominance are premature. The election revealed that the BJP possesses relatively few of the party-system advantages common to other dominan…
Ethnic Parties in New Democracies
Alliance Politics Amid the BJP’s Rise
Pre-election alliances have long figured prominently in Indian elections. Has the politics surrounding pre-election alliances changed with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? This article analyzes patterns of election alliance formation across India’s states and examines the extent to which these alliances affected the outcome of the 2019 election. It finds that patterns of alliance formation in the run-up to the 2019 election did not, …
Coalition Government and Party System Change
Are higher-magnitude electoral districts always better for small parties
Democratic Dynasties
Dynastic politics, usually presumed to be the antithesis of democracy, is a routine aspect of politics in many modern democracies. This book introduces a new theoretical perspective on dynasticism in democracies, using original data on twenty-first-century Indian parliaments. It argues that the roots of dynastic politics lie at least in part in modern democratic institutions - states and parties - which give political families a leg-up in the ele…
Socioeconomic status and corruption perceptions around the world
Why do citizens vary in their perceptions about the frequency of corruption? We hypothesize that those most harmed by corruption—the socioeconomically disadvantaged—should perceive corruption to be more frequent. Using multiple cross-national surveys, we find that the poor and the uneducated tend to perceive higher levels of corruption than the wealthy and the well educated. However, this relationship only holds in countries at high levels of eco…
Candidate Characteristics in Indian Elections
Are certain kinds of candidates more likely to do better in elections than others? Using a unique dataset on the characteristics of candidates in elections in the north Indian state of Haryana, this study finds that certain candidate characteristics are associated with greater vote shares
How opposition parties sustain single-party dominance
When elections are free and fair, why do some political parties rule for prolonged periods of time? Most explanations for single-party dominance focus on the dominant party’s origins, resources, or strategies. In this article, we show how opposition parties can undermine or sustain single-party dominance. Specifically, opposition parties should be central in explaining single-party dominance in countries with highly disproportional electoral syst…
Electoral Systems in Context
Throughout its history, India has employed first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral rules for nearly all of its legislative elections. Though India uses a relatively common set of electoral rules, three features of India’s FPTP electoral system stand out. First, India’s election constituencies exhibit persistent malapportionment, even after a recent redrawing of constituency boundaries. Second, India mandates representation for historically disadvant…
Electoral Volatility and Turnout
High levels of electoral volatility are common in new and developing-world democracies. In this article, we examine the implications of electoral volatility—more specifically, party entry and exit—on voter turnout. We hypothesize that new party entry should be associated with increases in turnout, as new parties mobilize previously apathetic voters through new party organizations and networks of canvassers. Further, we hypothesize that existing p…
Social Cleavages, Party Organization, and the End of Single-Party Dominance
When do electorally dominant parties lose power in democracies? Drawing on the experiences of India's states during the period of Indian National Congress dominance, we argue that single-party dominance is less likely to endure under two conditions: first, when one of the opposition parties possesses a longstanding and robust party organization and, second, when there is a single social cleavage dividing the political class into two main cleavage…
Alliance Politics Amid the BJP’s Rise
Pre-election alliances have long figured prominently in Indian elections. Has the politics surrounding pre-election alliances changed with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? This article analyzes patterns of election alliance formation across India’s states and examines the extent to which these alliances affected the outcome of the 2019 election. It finds that patterns of alliance formation in the run-up to the 2019 election did not, …
A new dominant party in India? Putting the 2019 BJP victory into comparative and historical perspective
The 2019 Indian national election delivered a convincing victory to the BJP and, along with it, prognostications of future BJP election wins. The BJP’s victory was certainly impressive, but does it portend a prolonged period of BJP rule at the national level? As of 2019, any predictions of the BJP’s long-term dominance are premature. The election revealed that the BJP possesses relatively few of the party-system advantages common to other dominan…
How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India
Countries around the world use various means to ensure that underrepresented groups gain legislative representation, including reserved seats and quotas for political party lists. Despite the fact that such measures are political interventions, the literature has mostly ignored their impact on electoral competition. We argue that reserved seats reduce the number of viable candidates and increase the extent to which competition revolves around maj…
Ethnic Parties in New Democracies
The Authoritarian Origins of Dominant Parties in Democracies
What accounts for Duverger's law? The behavioral mechanisms underpinning two-party convergence in India
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World
In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning lite…
Varieties of Electoral Dominance
Dominant political parties rule for prolonged periods of time by winning successive multiparty elections. However, the term "dominant party" encompasses an extremely diverse set of parties, ranging from ones winning unremarkable vote shares in established democracies to those garnering massive popular majorities in free but unfair elections. To grapple with such heterogeneity, this article proposes a three-part typology based on the foundations o…
Why So Little Strategic Voting in India
Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger's Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world's most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger's Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show th…
When Does Electoral Cooperation End? How Relative Changes in Popular Support Undermine Election Alliances in India
Political parties around the world form election alliances in which they field common candidates or joint party lists. Once such alliances have formed, what prompts them to end? Existing perspectives suggest that alliances end when allied parties diverge ideologically or the alliance no longer provides parties with electoral benefit. We suggest a different rationale: changes in allies’ relative electoral strength. When one ally becomes relatively…
Political science (19 works) · Law (15 works) · Political economy (15 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Economics (10 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (9 works) · Democracy (8 works)