Voter Patterns

Perry Anderson calls it “a truly distinguishing feature of Indian democracy”:

“In India alone, the poor form not just the overwhelming majority of the electorate, but vote in larger numbers than the better-off. Everywhere else, without exception, the ratio of electoral participation is the reverse.”

But shouldn’t that be the case in all poor countries? I guess it isn’t so because most poor countries aren’t democracies!

Kimuli Kasara and Pavithra Suryanarayan in their paper titled, “When do the Rich Vote Less than the Poor and Why? Explaining Turnout Inequality across the World” concluded that:

“Using survey data from a wide range of developed and developing countries, we demonstrate that the rich turn out to vote at higher rates than the poor where the state has the bureaucratic capacity to tax the rich and where the political preferences of the rich and poor diverge.”

I think the finding is only partially correct. If the paper’s conclusion was right, consider this: In India, only the salaried class pays any taxes. So shouldn’t they turn out in maximum numbers at every election? But that obviously doesn’t happen. Why? Because the poor outnumber the middle class…by huge amounts. The politician can safely ignore the middle class and still win elections. Demographics matter. I am surprised the paper didn’t notice that: it seems so obvious…or was this study only based on rich countries?