Tariq Thachil
Biographic Data
| ID | 969256 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tariq Thachil |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tariq |
| FAMILY NAME | Thachil |
| SIGNATURE | THACHIL T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vanderbilt University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 338 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
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…
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
Does Police Repression Spur Everyday Cooperation? Evidence from Urban India
Does routinized police repression spark or quell everyday cooperation within frequently repressed communities? This important question has been neglected by comparative studies of policing, which have largely examined how repression affects citizen willingness to protest against the state. I study the effects of policing on cooperation within an important, frequently repressed urban community: poor internal migrants. Empirically, I draw on ethnog…
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
Improving Surveys Through Ethnography: Insights from India’s Urban Periphery
The Strategic and Moral Imperatives of Local Engagement: Reflections on India
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India
Despite rapid urbanization across the Global South, identity politics within rural‐urban migrant communities remains understudied. Past scholarship is divided over whether village‐based ethnic divisions will erode or deepen within diverse poor migrant populations. I assess these divergent predictions through an ‘ethnographic survey experiment’ (N=4,218) among unique samples of poor migrants in India. Contra conventional expectations, I find intra…
Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian States
Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are thought to uniformly rely on distributing excludable benefits to co-ethnics, rather than on providing public goods to all. We argue that ethnic parties can vary substantially in how they mobilize support and behave in office. Much of this variation depends on the breadth of the identity they activate. Although “nar…
Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This puzzle has been famously studied within wealthy Western democracies, yet the fact that the poor voter paradox also routinely manifests within poor countries has remained unexplored. This book studies how this paradox emerged in India, the world's largest democracy. Tariq Thachil shows how arguments from studies of wealthy democracies (such as moral values voting) and the global …
Elite Parties and Poor Voters: Theory and Evidence from India
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This article extends the study of this global paradox to the non-Western world by considering how it manifests within India, the world's biggest democracy. Arguments derived from studies of advanced democracies (such as values voting) or of poor polities (such as patronage and ethnic appeals) fail to explain this important phenomenon. Instead, I outline a novel strategy predicated on…
Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India
How do elite parties win over poor voters while maintaining their core constituencies? How can religious parties expand their electoral base? This article argues that social service provision constitutes an important electoral strategy for elite-backed religious parties to succeed in developing democracies. The study demonstrates how the upper caste, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won unexpected support from lower-caste voters in …
Neoliberalism's Two Faces in Asia: Globalization, Educational Policies, and Religious Schooling in India, Pakistan, and Malaysia
Poor choices: De-alignment, development and Dalit/Adivasi voting patterns in Indian states
The surprising loss of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led national government in India's 2004 general elections has been generally understood as a rejection of the National Democratic Alliance's campaign that celebrated a ‘Shining India’ among voters who had not shared in the wealth produced by India's recent growth boom—especially Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe electorates. A close look at the empirical evidence demonstrates that Dalit an…
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
Elite Parties and Poor Voters: Theory and Evidence from India
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This article extends the study of this global paradox to the non-Western world by considering how it manifests within India, the world's biggest democracy. Arguments derived from studies of advanced democracies (such as values voting) or of poor polities (such as patronage and ethnic appeals) fail to explain this important phenomenon. Instead, I outline a novel strategy predicated on…
Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India
How do elite parties win over poor voters while maintaining their core constituencies? How can religious parties expand their electoral base? This article argues that social service provision constitutes an important electoral strategy for elite-backed religious parties to succeed in developing democracies. The study demonstrates how the upper caste, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won unexpected support from lower-caste voters in …
Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India
Despite rapid urbanization across the Global South, identity politics within rural‐urban migrant communities remains understudied. Past scholarship is divided over whether village‐based ethnic divisions will erode or deepen within diverse poor migrant populations. I assess these divergent predictions through an ‘ethnographic survey experiment’ (N=4,218) among unique samples of poor migrants in India. Contra conventional expectations, I find intra…
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
Does Police Repression Spur Everyday Cooperation? Evidence from Urban India
Does routinized police repression spark or quell everyday cooperation within frequently repressed communities? This important question has been neglected by comparative studies of policing, which have largely examined how repression affects citizen willingness to protest against the state. I study the effects of policing on cooperation within an important, frequently repressed urban community: poor internal migrants. Empirically, I draw on ethnog…
Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian States
Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are thought to uniformly rely on distributing excludable benefits to co-ethnics, rather than on providing public goods to all. We argue that ethnic parties can vary substantially in how they mobilize support and behave in office. Much of this variation depends on the breadth of the identity they activate. Although “nar…
Improving Surveys Through Ethnography: Insights from India’s Urban Periphery
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
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…
Poor choices: De-alignment, development and Dalit/Adivasi voting patterns in Indian states
The surprising loss of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led national government in India's 2004 general elections has been generally understood as a rejection of the National Democratic Alliance's campaign that celebrated a ‘Shining India’ among voters who had not shared in the wealth produced by India's recent growth boom—especially Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe electorates. A close look at the empirical evidence demonstrates that Dalit an…
Neoliberalism's Two Faces in Asia: Globalization, Educational Policies, and Religious Schooling in India, Pakistan, and Malaysia
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
Poor choices: De-alignment, development and Dalit/Adivasi voting patterns in Indian states
The surprising loss of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led national government in India's 2004 general elections has been generally understood as a rejection of the National Democratic Alliance's campaign that celebrated a ‘Shining India’ among voters who had not shared in the wealth produced by India's recent growth boom—especially Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe electorates. A close look at the empirical evidence demonstrates that Dalit an…
Neoliberalism's Two Faces in Asia: Globalization, Educational Policies, and Religious Schooling in India, Pakistan, and Malaysia
Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India
How do elite parties win over poor voters while maintaining their core constituencies? How can religious parties expand their electoral base? This article argues that social service provision constitutes an important electoral strategy for elite-backed religious parties to succeed in developing democracies. The study demonstrates how the upper caste, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won unexpected support from lower-caste voters in …
Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This puzzle has been famously studied within wealthy Western democracies, yet the fact that the poor voter paradox also routinely manifests within poor countries has remained unexplored. This book studies how this paradox emerged in India, the world's largest democracy. Tariq Thachil shows how arguments from studies of wealthy democracies (such as moral values voting) and the global …
Elite Parties and Poor Voters: Theory and Evidence from India
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This article extends the study of this global paradox to the non-Western world by considering how it manifests within India, the world's biggest democracy. Arguments derived from studies of advanced democracies (such as values voting) or of poor polities (such as patronage and ethnic appeals) fail to explain this important phenomenon. Instead, I outline a novel strategy predicated on…
Ethnic Parties and Public Spending: New Theory and Evidence From the Indian States
Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are thought to uniformly rely on distributing excludable benefits to co-ethnics, rather than on providing public goods to all. We argue that ethnic parties can vary substantially in how they mobilize support and behave in office. Much of this variation depends on the breadth of the identity they activate. Although “nar…
Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India
Despite rapid urbanization across the Global South, identity politics within rural‐urban migrant communities remains understudied. Past scholarship is divided over whether village‐based ethnic divisions will erode or deepen within diverse poor migrant populations. I assess these divergent predictions through an ‘ethnographic survey experiment’ (N=4,218) among unique samples of poor migrants in India. Contra conventional expectations, I find intra…
Improving Surveys Through Ethnography: Insights from India’s Urban Periphery
The Strategic and Moral Imperatives of Local Engagement: Reflections on India
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Choice in India's Slums
Conventional models of clientelism often assume poor voters have little or no choice over which local broker to turn to for help. Yet communities in many clientelistic settings are marked by multiple brokers who compete for a following. Such competition makes client choices, and the preferences guiding such choices, pivotal in fueling broker support. We examine client preferences for a pervasive broker-slum leaders-in the context of urban India. …
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India
Does Police Repression Spur Everyday Cooperation? Evidence from Urban India
Does routinized police repression spark or quell everyday cooperation within frequently repressed communities? This important question has been neglected by comparative studies of policing, which have largely examined how repression affects citizen willingness to protest against the state. I study the effects of policing on cooperation within an important, frequently repressed urban community: poor internal migrants. Empirically, I draw on ethnog…
Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums
Studies of clientelism overwhelmingly focus on how brokers target voters with top‐down benefits during elections. Yet brokers also receive requests from voters for assistance between elections, initiating the processes through which they cultivate clients. Why are brokers responsive to the requests of some voters and not others? We provide the first study of broker preferences when evaluating client appeals. Theories emphasizing brokers as vote m…
Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case
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…
Who Knows How to Govern? Procedural Knowledge in India's Small-Town Councils
Governments across the Global South have decentralized a degree of power to municipal authorities. Are local officials sufficiently knowledgeable about how to execute their expanded portfolio of responsibilities? Past studies have focused on whether citizens lack the requisite information to hold local officials accountable. We instead draw on extensive fieldwork and a novel survey of small-town politicians in India to show that local officials t…
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Economics (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (10 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Development economics (7 works) · Politics and Society in Latin America (7 works) · Law (6 works)