Extracted from Programmatic Parties
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3 India
3.1 Introduction
This case study of programmatic party politics in India focuses on two major
transformations, one at the national level and the other at the state level. At the national
level, India's party system has experienced fragmentation since the late 1980s, when the
decades-long hegemony of the Congress Party began to give way to heated multi-party
competition. The Congress Party's cadre programmatic party model—in which the
programmes formulated by party elites were not important to the way that the party
mobilized voters—has been challenged by parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and a range of regional parties. Many of these
newer parties have clear programmatic elements, yet they defy conventional categories
by combining programmatic platforms with targeted ethnicity-based appeals to voters.
On the one hand, these parties can be argued to represent an improvement on the
Congress model because they bridge the gap between elite and mass party politics.
Conversely, the often divisive nature of these parties’ strategies is not always conducive
to stability in a large and diverse democracy such as India. However, there is evidence
that over time these parties have moderated their emphasis on identity and as a result
are becoming less 'ethnic' in their style of politics. In other words, they are in a process
of becoming ‘ethnic–programmatic’ parties.
At the sub-national level, over the last two decades chief ministers and political parties
have emerged seeking to win elections by advocating programmes of economic
development and good governance at the state level. The strategies employed by such
parties are a stark contrast to the norm of vote buying and clientelism—or 'patronage
democracy'—that has characterized Indian state elections for decades. These 'good
governance' parties are reforming India's state-level politics and have brought about
real democratic gains both in terms of accountability and government performance.
States led by such programmatic parties have experienced dramatic improvements in
terms of economic growth and the quality of public services, and good governance
parties have been electorally successful as a result. Taken together, these two trends
represent a virtuous cycle that has encouraged other parties to adopt the model.
What explains the rise of ethnic–programmatic parties at the national level in India? The
story begins with the institutional decay of the Congress Party, which created
opportunities for new political entrepreneurs to enter the party system. But economic
liberalization has also been significant, reducing the central government's monopolistic
control over economic and political resources and thereby undermining the capacity of
the ruling party’s clientelistic linkages to deliver electoral dominance. This dual process
undermined the foundations of the Congress regime and opposition parties took
advantage of this window of opportunity to develop electoral linkages and programmes
that tapped the latent social cleavages that Congress—for decades an 'umbrella' party
that had embraced a wide range of disparate social groups and interests—had failed to
capitalize upon. As new parties such as the BJP developed into credible national
contenders, however, the pressures of competitive party politics encouraged them to
moderate their identity politics in order to expand beyond the relatively narrow support
bases that first brought them to prominence—leading to a second evolution that has
resulted in the emergence of nascent ethnic–programmatic parties.
What explains the rise of 'good governance' programmatic parties at the state level in
India? The decentralization of economic policymaking authority and resources
associated with economic liberalization made it feasible for political leaders to run on
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the basis of good governance campaigns—which carried little weight when states lacked
the capacity to affect these policy areas. The growing inter-state competition for private
investment has magnified the reward for pursuing pro-growth policies. At the same
time, we must leave space for individual agency. It was the emergence of a handful of
political leaders, such as Chandrababu Naidu, who understood that the new economic
and institutional context brought with it opportunities for a new kind of politics, that
kick-started the process of programmatization in India. Once these individuals had
emerged, demonstration effects meant that parties and voters in other states quickly
learnt of the economic benefits of ‘good governance’ parties—and their electoral
success. It was not long before similar developments began to play out in other states
across the country.
India, the world's largest democracy, thus offers a number of valuable lessons about
programmatic party politics. First, programmaticity is a complicated quality and may
emerge in more ‘civic’ or more ‘ethnic’ variants—some of which may be less
normatively desirable than others. Second, it suggests that although the political
transition from single-party dominance to multi-party competition in socially diverse
countries often results in the emergence of parties based around social and territorial
cleavages, over time political competition can induce leaders to moderate their identity
politics, giving rise to ethnic–programmatic parties. Third, it reveals that institutional
reforms matter. Decentralization was a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for the
evolution of more programmatic approaches at the state level. Fourth, it illustrates that
economic reforms can have an important impact upon programmaticity, especially
when they reduce the resources available for non-programmatic forms of linkage, such
as patron–client ties, and place leaders under greater pressure to deliver. Finally, the
Indian case highlights the importance of demonstration effects in the spread of
programmatic party politics, and so has much to tell us about how programmatic gains
become consolidated.
3.2 History of Programmatic Politics in India
India has experienced nearly continuous democracy—with a brief interruption during
the 'Emergency' period from 1975 to 1977—since independence in 1947. Yet India's
political party system has undergone steady evolution since independence: from an era
of 'pluralistic' single-party dominance by the Congress Party under Jawharlal Nehru
(1947-1967) during which there was substantial competition within the party (Kothari
1964), to a period (1967-1984) of 'authoritarian' single-party dominance by the
Congress Party, when power was centralized under Indira Gandhi (Bose and Jalal 2004),
to the present, post-economic liberalization phase of multi-party competition phase
(1991-present) in which power has alternated between coalition governments led by
the Congress Party and the BJP, respectively. A graph of the distribution of seats in the
Lok Sabha—the lower house of India's legislature—from the 1950s to the present day,
illustrates these recent developments (Figure 3).
Historically, a hallmark of India's national political party system has been the
combination of coherent and distinctive party programmes, formulated by party elites,
with highly clientelistic and populist electoral strategies (Brass 1994). In large part, this
is the product of Congress rule. Under India's first Prime Minister, Jawharlal Nehru, the
independence movement–turned political party articulated a clear programmatic
commitment to state-led development and industrialization (Guha 2007). Yet support
for this programme was purchased largely on the basis of a hierarchical patron–client
network that extended into India's local districts (Weiner 1967). To this day, the
Congress Party remains a quintessential 'cadre programmatic party'.
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Figure 3: Party Seat Shares in the Lok Sabha, 1951–2009
Sources: Election Commission of India
Since economic liberalization in 1991 and with the simultaneous decline of Congress
Party hegemony, new entrants to the national party system have begun to pursue
alternative forms of political organization. Initially, these parties carved out spaces for
themselves on the basis of ethnic appeals. The BJP, now a credible national alternative to
Congress, has risen to power largely based on the ideology of hindutva, Hindu
nationalism, which has successfully attracted voters away from the secular Congress
Party (Kohli 2001). Other parties have appealed to caste identities, such as the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP), a quasi-regional low-caste political party, or to linguistic/territorial
identities, as has been the case with a number of regional parties. While these parties do
offer coherent, distinct and stable political programmes and appeal to voters on that
basis, they also tend to target specific ethnic groups rather than the general electorate—
an approach which, overall, is in many respects programmatic but may nonetheless be
deleterious to national identity. However, some of these new parties appear to be
curtailing their emphasis on ethnicity in favour of widening the scope of their electoral
appeal, suggesting that they are in a process of evolving from ethnic parties into ethnic–
programmatic parties.
A second important trend has emerged at the state level. From the mid-1990s onwards,
political parties in a number of states have aggressively campaigned on prodevelopment and 'good governance' platforms, won landslide election victories, and
implemented successful reforms once in office. The paradigmatic case is Bihar—one of
India's very poorest states that for decades was synonymous with criminalized,
clientelistic politics and economic stagnation—which, following the election of reformist
chief minister Nitish Kumar in 2005, experienced annual growth above 11 per cent and
a genuine improvement in the quality of government (Economist 25 Nov 2010; New
York Times 10 April 2010). While Kumar has garnered the greatest amount of media
attention, he is only the latest in the fast-growing list of state-level chief ministers (and
their political parties) that have adopted such a programmatic strategy. This process
actually began a decade earlier with the rise of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and
the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh during the 1990s (Rudolph and
Rudolph 2001). Although the ‘good governance’ party model has yet to spread to all of
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India's states, the emergence of politically successful programmatic parties committed
to good governance represents a paradigm shift in India's state-level politics.
3.3 Conceptualization and Description of Programmatic Parties
India does not feature classic ‘programmatic parties’. However, it does feature a number
of political parties that, in different ways, have embraced aspects of a programmatic
platform or mobilization strategy. Congress, a cadre–programmatic party, adopts
programmatic policy platforms even though it rallies support through clientelistic
strategies, while ethnic–programmatic parties such as the BJP and BSP establish
linkages to voters by formulating stable ideological positions but their policies
disproportionately benefit some ethnic communities (a term that is here used as a
shorthand for religious, regional, linguistic and caste identities) over others.
Congress: the cadre–programmatic party
Kothari (1964) has characterized the two decades of Congress dominance that followed
independence in 1947 as representing the emergence of the 'Congress System', a term
intended to capture pluralistic governing style of Jawharlal Nehru, the immensely
popular prime minister and leader of the Congress Party. Though opposition parties
possessed few seats in the national or state legislatures, they played a large role in
political debates and often influenced policy (Guha 2007). Similarly, though Nehru
wielded immense personal control over the party, he often accommodated opposing
views within the party, and generally pursed a consensus-oriented centrist political
strategy. It was this approach that underpinned the emergence of the cadre–
programmatic political machine that the Congress Party epitomizes to this day.
Nehru and the Congress Party leadership advocated and implemented an economic
strategy of state-led development and industrialization based on a succession of ‘fiveyear plans’ (Chhibber and Kollman 2004). Yet this economic programme, the major
agenda of the Congress Party, played little role in the way the party connected to
voters—which was instead based primarily on a hierarchical network of patronage that
extended into India's districts (Weiner 1967). In the words of Mitra: ‘Soon after
independence, the Congress co-opted landed gentry, businessmen, peasant proprietors,
new industrialists and the rural middle class—socially and economically entrenched
groups in society—into its organization. This provided the party with a strong and ready
structure of support, with electoral 'link men' who controlled various 'vote banks',
serviced through patronage’ (2011: 306). Thus, the Congress Party was programmatic in
its policymaking but clientelistic in its electoral linkages.
The disjuncture remains. For example, the dramatic liberal economic reforms initiated
by the Congress Party that dismantled India's decades-old licensing and state-directed
economic system from 1991 onward never emerged as an election issue. In Varshney's
words: 'In a survey of mass political attitudes in India conducted in 1996, only 19 per
cent of the electorate reported any knowledge of the economic reforms that had been
implemented, even though the reforms had been in existence since 1991. In the
countryside, where more than 70 per cent of Indians then lived, only about 14 per cent
had heard of the reforms (compared with 32 per cent of voters in cities). Economic
reforms were a non-issue in the 1996 and 1998 parliamentary elections. In the 1999
elections, the biggest reformers either lost or did not campaign on pro-market
platforms' (2007: 102). Similar observations have been made about the disconnect
between elite economic policymaking and mass politics in India by other researchers
(see Kohli 2006).
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There is also a striking disconnect between the party’s programme and the way that it
organizes itself. This is reflected in the way that Congress handles the question of party
leadership, which since Nehru has been transferred dynastically, with minimal
recruitment of grassroots political talent. Shortly after Nehru's death power was
transferred to Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, who surrounded herself with
sycophants and de-institutionalized the Congress Party (Kohli 1991); then to Rajiv
Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's son, who served a short stint as prime minister but died early in
his political career; then within a few years to Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's widow, who
was elected leader of the Congress Party in 1997; and most recently to Rahul Gandhi,
Sonia Gandhi's son, a Congress Party MP who is widely expected to replace his mother
as party leader in the very near future.
The Bharatiya Janata Party: an ethno–programmatic party
The BJP controlled only two seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984. In the 1998 general
elections, the party earned a total of 178 seats, enough to form a coalition government
with a collection of regional allies. It is now viewed as a credible national alternative to
the Congress Party and has successfully formed national coalition governments in 1996
and 1998–2004. Its rapid political ascent has been associated with its ability to appeal to
Hindu voters in the Hindi-speaking northern belt of India. But its strong organizational
base and committed cadre of grassroots workers has enabled it to forge effective links
with voters beyond that constituency as well. Over time, the BJP has shed the religious
nationalism that brought it to power in favour of a more secular, nationalist image.
The BJP's origins can be traced to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu
social movement founded in 1925. An offshoot of its predecessor party, the Bharatiya
Jana Sangh, the BJP was founded in 1980 and until the late 1980s remained a relatively
minor force in national party politics. However, by providing a political face for the
controversial efforts of Hindu nationalists to demolish an Islamic mosque built allegedly
on top of an holy ancient Hindu site in the town of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, the party
was catapulted to national influence in the early 1990s (Jaffrelot 2007).
The BJP has been able to appeal to a number of different constituencies using a number
of different types of appeals. The party’s commitment to hindutva, Hindu nationalism,
and the adoption of policies that were popular among India's northern upper-caste
Hindu voters, such as ‘religious legislation’ in the shape of bans on the slaughter of cows
and religious conversion, has been central to its rise. More troubling still, in certain
states such as Gujarat BJP governments have either tacitly supported or turned a blind
eye to anti-Muslim riots and violence. Unlike the Congress Party, which has historically
been something of a 'catch-all', secular, centrist party, the BJP has traditionally drawn its
leadership and membership from a relatively specific constituency: upper-caste Hindus
in northern India (Basu 2012). Yet at the same time, the BJP has made direct ideological
and programmatic appeals to voters on the basis of a more assertive foreign policy,
fewer affirmative action benefits for minorities and disadvantaged groups and a
coherent national economic plan. Both in terms of the party’s platform and linkage to
voters, then, the BJP has displayed some of the characteristics of both a programmatic
and an ethnic party.
The same is true when it comes to the way that the BJP is internally organized and
formulates policy. As with Congress, the BJP is a hierarchically organized party with
power heavily concentrated in the hands of a few party leaders. But in contrast to
Congress, these leaders tend to be drawn from its core ethnic base. Moreover, unlike the
elite programmes of the Congress Party, the BJP's Hindu nationalist ideology serves not
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only as an organizing principle for the policy programmes devised by party elites but is
also ardently adhered to by the party's grassroots workers and is an important
component of how the party links to voters and recruits its leaders (Thachil 2011). For
example, the BJP leadership is comprised primarily of lifelong political activists, such as
LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first BJP prime minister, who have extensive
grassroots experience. Indeed, Basu (2012) describes the BJP as a 'cadre-based mass
party', linked to voters through a highly disciplined and ideological organization of party
workers and social organizers.
As it evolved into a national political contender, the BJP began to downplay its public
emphasis on religious sectionalism in favour of casting itself as a clean and nationalistic
alternative to the Congress Party. Significantly, each time the BJP has come to power it
has implemented policies that have emphasized its ability to lead on national issues.
India carried out major nuclear weapons tests in 1998 under the leadership of a BJP-led
coalition government and a BJP government took an assertive foreign policy stance visà-vis Pakistan and led India to victory in the Kargil War with Pakistan in 1999.
Furthermore, the BJP's stints in office have demonstrated that the BJP is a capable
policymaking organization; BJP-led governments have overseen the passage of
sophisticated economic policy reform measures, including the Fiscal Responsibility and
Budgetary Management Act, a landmark deficit reduction measure, and the Special
Economic Zones Act, a major deregulatory measure (World Bank 2005; Panagariya
2004). It is worth noting that, while the BJP continues to employ the rhetoric of
economic nationalism, in reality it supports the same liberal economic reforms
originally implemented by the Congress Party and embraces globalization, which party
leaders view as the contemporary route to greater international power and status
(Jaffrelot 2007; Basu 2011).
The BJP thus possesses stable programmatic commitments that form the basis for the
link between the party and voters, differentiate it from its principal rival, the Congress
Party, and define the policies the party implements once elected to office. Although it
may once have been an ethnic party, the BJP has moved away from solely stressing
ethnic/religious themes. In its discourse, however, and some of its policies, it continues
to pander to the preferences of Hindu voters, partly due to the fact that it continues to
maintain linkages with Hindu social movements such as the RSS. The BJP thus appears
to be best characterized as an ethnic–programmatic party.
The Bahujan Samaj Party
Regional and caste parties have also proliferated with the decline of Congress Party
hegemony. Though individually not as influential as either the BJP or Congress,
collectively these parties have played an important role during the 1990s and 2000s as
allies of the Congress Party and BJP in alternating coalition governments. Although
small, such parties have often been pivotal members of their coalitions and national
elections have been won and lost based on their performance (Palshikar 2012). A
prominent example is the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a quasi-regional low-caste party
that has experienced considerable political success. Based primarily in Uttar Pradesh,
India's largest state, the BSP experienced an impressive rise in electoral success during
the 1990s, earning 21 Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 general elections, up from just three
seats in the 1991 general elections.
The BSP was founded in 1984 by Kanshi Ram, a Dalit (the 'lowest' caste in the Hindu
caste system) caste social activist. Originally a party of Dalits, the BSP has fashioned
electoral success over time by expanding its scope, bringing together as an electoral bloc
a disparate collection of constituencies: Dalits, minorities, including Christians, Muslims,
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and the tribal population, as well as other arguably disadvantaged groups, such as the
'Other Backwards Castes' (OBCs). It has brought these different groups together under
the moniker of 'Bahujans', or 'the deprived majority', a little-used term it has adopted
and propagated. The party has fashioned itself as a party of the downtrodden and the
party that stands against the dominance of high-caste Hindus (Hasan 2002). Like the
BJP, which also emerged from a social movement, the BSP is notable for its extremely
strong grassroots party organization, which has helped to mobilize voters to the party’s
cause (Jaffrelot 1998).
The BSP party subscribes to a distinct and coherent programme of Bahujan
empowerment. A major pillar of the party's programme is 'reservations', or affirmative
action policies, for disadvantaged groups and greater government spending in
disadvantaged communities. When Mayawati, the immensely charismatic leader of the
BSP, became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1995, she directed government spending
and benefits toward Dalit villages, as promised: ‘Mayawati is popular […] because during
her tenure as CM a number of welfare measures for Dalits were undertaken […] the land
'pattas' which had not been allotted to Dalits during the emergency but not given, were
actually distributed among them; “pucca” roads linking the villages to the main road,
construction of houses, drinking water pumps and toilets in the SC sections of the
villages; pensions for old persons […] were some of the schemes implemented’ (Jaffrelot
2007a). Mayawati has also delivered less socially targeted goods, such as rural
electrification (Min 2010). But at the same time, she is notorious for her alleged
corruption, cronyism and strong-arm politics, which together with patron–client ties
form the basis of the way that the party creates links with voters in the absence of an
effective formal party organization and institutionalization.
Given the BSP’s sectional foundation and clientelistic structure it is tempting to dismiss
it as a non-programmatic party. However, in many ways constructing a support base
around ethnicity and caste in the Indian context is analogous to mobilizing on the basis
of class in the European context. This is because in India communal forms of identity
such as caste play an important role in structuring the life chances of an individual. Most
obviously, caste and socio-economic status are highly, though not perfectly, correlated.
As a result, mobilizing support on the basis of ‘the deprived majority’ does not simply
represent an attempt to capitalize upon ethnic politics. Rather, it reflects the attempt to
establish a more equal and just political and economic system, and therefore bears
comparison to the appeals of leftist parties in Europe to the working-class vote in order
to pursue widespread economic reform. Thus, while the BSP displays some
characteristics of a clientelistic and ethnic party, its broad appeal can also be said to
have a clear programmatic component. Indeed, Stokes (2007) has referred to electoral
linkages of this kind as ‘programmatic redistributive linkages’.
Moreover, like the BJP, the BSP has over time sought to widen the scope of its appeal to
voters. Initially a party of the Dalits, over time the BSP has expanded to include other
disadvantaged groups as noted above. It now describes itself as the party of 'Bahujans',
which does not correspond to any ethnic group in particular but to the disadvantaged
more generally. A favourite metaphor of BSP leaders analogizes India to a ballpoint pen,
where the tip of the pen represents the dominant castes, and remaining length
represents the downtrodden 85 per cent that the BSP seeks to represent (Jaffrelot 1998:
38). Such metaphors convey a political ideology which is divisive but which is also
national is scope and goes beyond mere ethnic appeals. This is well illustrated by the
party’s recent attempt to bring Brahmins, members of the highest Hindu caste, into its
fold by organizing party rallies for Brahmin voters (Tripathi 2007).
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The BSP is associated with a clear and cohesive ideology and programme of Bahujan
empowerment. It differentiates itself from rivals such as the Congress Party and the BJP
on that basis, uses these appeals to form links to voters, and implements pro-Bahujan
policies when elected to (thus far, state) office. So although the party has been criticized
for being polarizing and divisive—some commentators have termed Mayawati the 'antiObama' in reference to her allegedly divisive political style—and continues to display
characteristics of being an ethnic and clientelistic party, the BSP also advocates an
important programmatic position. As a result, the BSP represent a new type of ethnic–
programmatic political party that is threatening to displace the old Congress Party
model of cadre programmatic politics in India's national party system.
Table 6: Indian Party Profiles
Party Name
Party organization
Party Linkages
Party type
Congress Party
Strong elite party
organization. Weak
grassroots party
organization. High
policymaking capacity.
Programmatic and
clientelistic linkages
nationwide.
Cadre–
programmatic
Bharatiya
Janata Party
Strong elite party
organization. Strong
grassroots party
organization. High
policymaking capacity.
Ethnic and
programmatic linkages
nationwide.
Ethnic–
programmatic
Bahujan Samaj
Party
Mediocre elite party
organization.
Strong grassroots party
organization. Medium
policymaking capacity.
Ethnic, clientelistic and
programmatic linkages,
some national reach but
mainly in Uttar Pradesh.
Ethnic/clientelist
–programmatic
State-level politics: the rise of 'good governance' parties
While national politics only became competitive from the late 1980s onward, party
politics in India's states have been open for much longer. State politics has traditionally
been a highly clientelistic affair, with elections fought and won on the basis of patronage
rather than policy programmes (Wilkinson 2007). This is epitomized by India's
southern states, where parties of regional notables, such as the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil
Nadu, compete in 'bidding wars' for the mass vote—making innovative offers of goods,
such as free electricity, free bicycles, cash, gold, alcohol and other items, in exchange for
votes. In reference to such practices, Chandra goes so far as to term India a 'patronage
democracy' (2004).
In this political and historical context, one of the most notable but under-studied recent
developments in Indian politics from the 1990s onward has been the rise of state-level
parties and chief ministers committed to programmes of 'good governance' and
economic development. These parties and chief ministers have been elected largely on
the basis of their programmatic appeals—though some forms of traditional politics have
invariably persisted. When in office they have implemented policies in line with their
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promises. Frequently, these policies have been successful, and the parties have been
returned to office with strong mandates.
This emerging paradigm can perhaps be traced to the victory of the Telugu Desam Party
(TDP) and the selection of Chandrababu Naidu as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in
1995. Naidu came to power with an electoral campaign based heavily on promises of
economic development and pro-growth policies. This electoral strategy was a genuine
innovation in state-level politics, particularly in the context of poor states in which
clientelism has tended to be particularly rampant. As Rudolph and Rudolph (2001) note,
Naidu swiftly became an ‘icon’ for liberal state-level economic reforms and economic
modernization in India. This was embodied in his decision, shortly after taking office, to
ask the international consulting firm McKinsey to craft an economic strategy document
for his government (Price 2010). Not only were Naidu’s reforms economically
successful, they were also immensely popular and resulted in him being returned to
power until 2004, despite the well-known anti-incumbency bias in Indian state elections
(Uppal 2009).
The 'Naidu model' of competing in elections on the basis of a programmatic platform
swiftly spread to other states in India, cutting across party and ideological lines. Unlikely
'converts' have included Jyoti Basu, the long-time communist chief minister (1977–
2000) of West Bengal who began to publicly advertise his desire to attract private
investment to the state, and Mayawati of the BSP, who incorporated the language of
public service delivery into her public speeches and, according to several studies,
actually delivered on this count (Min 2010). Additionally, a number of state chief
ministers and parties have emerged that have made good governance and economic
development the signature feature of their political campaigns. These include Narendra
Modi, the BJP politician who has become the longest-serving chief minister in Gujarat's
history by effectively championing economic modernization and development. Another
leader in this mould is Nitish Kumar, the Janata Dal (United) (JDU) politician who came
to power in Bihar's 2005 election on the back of a good governance agenda.
While many of these parties maintain ethnic and clientelistic ties with voters, they have
risen to power as a result of their ability to put together and communicate a civic
programmatic agenda that involves the provision of a number of public goods. In order
to fully appreciate the significance of this increase in programmaticity at the state level
it is worth dwelling on the case of Bihar. Prior to Kumar's tenure, Bihar had been
synonymous in the Indian imagination with clientelistic politics, economic stagnation,
crime, caste conflict, widespread poverty and, above all, Lalu Prasad, the famously
corrupt Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief minister who ruled the state from 1990–2005.
It is telling that for the final few years Prasad was forced to rule through his wife, who
became the nominal chief minister, after he was forced to resign during a corruption
scandal. For these reasons, among others, Bihar led the so-called BIMARU (Bihar,
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh) list of India's 'sick' states (bimaru means
'sick' in Hindi).
Yet despite the patronage resources at Prasad’s disposal, Kumar proved able to unseat
the RJD by drawing together an uneasy alliance of opposition forces around a largely
programmatic campaign. At his inauguration, Kumar restated his intention to pursue a
good governance agenda, to improve security, to improve infrastructure, and to attract
private investment to the state (The Hindu, Nov 25, 2005). The impact of Kumar's
reforms was quick and tangible. In the four years leading up to 2009, the state's GDP
grew annually at 10.5 per cent, exceeding the national average (The Economist, Jan 10,
2010). Crime plummeted, school enrolment rose, investment increased rapidly, and
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infrastructure improved dramatically, all of which enabled Kumar to retain power with
a landslide election victory in 2010.
'Good governance' parties and chief ministers represent a nascent programmatic
revolution in India's state-level politics. Although many fail to fully include grassroots
activists within the party organization, and so are similar in some ways to the cadre–
programmatic model of the Congress Party, in terms of linkage and policy they are
clearly programmatic. Instead of buying votes with patronage, they win support largely
on the basis of economic policy, typically advocate civic policies that improve conditions
for a range of groups, and implement the policies they campaign on when they gain
office.
The programmatic development of the party system
Growing programmaticity at the party level does not always translate into fully
programmatic party systems, as the case of Zambia demonstrates. Where India is
concerned, one needs to first differentiate the national party system from the myriad of
state-level party systems, and then to appreciate that multiple processes are playing out
at each level.
At the national party level, there have been contradictory trends. On the one hand, the
rise of ethnic–programmatic parties has contributed to the emergence of ‘vote bank’
politics, in which parties adopt programmes and mobilization strategies oriented
around existing ethnic and territorial cleavages and grievances. In this sense, increasing
political competition has facilitated the representation of identity politics within the
party system, as it has in much of Africa, and actually resulted in a decline in the level of
party system programmaticity because the focus of inter-party competition, and of
national policy debate, shifted toward the competing claims of rival groups.
However, once established as national political players, ethnic–programmatic parties
have significantly moderated their emphasis on identity politics in favour of widening
their appeal and casting themselves as legitimate national political contenders. Over the
past decade, the ‘ethnic’ component of ethnic–programmatic parties has become less
prominent. As a result, competition between parties and the main issues debated
around election time have begun to move away from ‘ethnic’ concerns and increasingly
focus on programmatic differences. Although India is only at the very beginning of this
process and the future remains uncertain, at the national level the party system appears
to be undergoing a process of programmatic development.
At the state level, the successful programmatic appeal of a small number of parties has
proved successful, and so provided incentives for other actors to adopt the model. In
states that have witnessed the rise of successful good governance parties, rival groups
have begun to adopt similar strategies in response. In these cases, we see clear evidence
of programmatic development within state-level party systems, with effects trickling
down to the village level. In Rajasthan, for example, Krishna (2007: 147) reports a local
district Congress politician telling him: 'The criterion for voting was earlier caste, now it
is development. Development work done in a village has the most effect on voting.'
Krishna (2007: 147) reports a similar statement by a BJP politician: 'Those individuals
are gaining most influence in villages who are able to get villagers' day-to-day work
done in government offices.' While each state is characterized by a unique party system,
and many have yet to experience the rise of credible programmatic parties, the
discourse of 'good governance' has spread across India. Even political leaders with little
desire to pursue programmatic policies must rhetorically commit themselves to
providing sound economic governance. Thus even where the linkage between parties
72
and voters remains unprogrammatic, political competition between parties is
increasingly revolving around programmatic appeals.
3.4 Causes of and Impediments to Programmatic Politics
Why has there been a transformation in the level of programmaticity within parties and
party systems at both the national and local level? This section first examines possible
causes of the rise of ethnic–programmatic parties at the national level, highlighting the
effects of the institutional decay of the Congress Party, economic liberalization and the
comparative advantage of new entrants in adopting programmatic strategies oriented
around existing social cleavages. Then it discusses the role of political competition in
inducing ethnic–programmatic parties to reduce their emphasis on ethnicity-based
appeals. Finally, it discusses possible explanations for the emergence of programmatic
'good governance' parties at the state level, highlighting the role of economic
liberalization and decentralization, leadership and agency, and demonstration effects.
Explaining Variation in Programmaticity in National Party Politics
The rise of ethnic–programmatic political parties such as the BJP, the BSP and a range of
regional parties occurred at the expense of the Congress Party, which experienced a
sustained loss of seats in the legislature during the early 1990s. Perhaps the most
significant factor was the organizational decay of the Congress Party under Indira
Gandhi. Facing internal and external opposition to her rule, during the 1970s Indira
Gandhi severely weakened the Congress Party's internal institutions and concentrated
power in her own hands. This strategy included dismantling nearly all of the Congress
Party's internal democratic organs and replacing key office-holders at all levels within
the party with loyalists (Kochanek 2002). While Gandhi was able to garner personal
support based on her charismatic appeal, the distribution of patronage, and populist
rhetoric, the process of de-institutionalization weakened the Congress Party in the long
run because it left it without the well-developed local party organization needed to
mobilize sustained support. Kohli (1991) notes that districts once characterized by wellorganized local Congress Party associations (according to an earlier study by Weiner in
1967) featured barely any organized Congress Party presence just two decades later.
The impact of widespread organizational decay became apparent in the late 1980s,
when mounting challenges to Congress across India resulted in a so-called ‘crisis of
governability’ (Kohli 1991).
Two other factors also played a major role in the emergence of an open competitive
party system that was more conducive to programmatic development. First, economic
liberalization and the decentralization of economic policymaking power weakened the
Congress Party's control over central resources, undermining its purely distributive
appeal to voters and local political bosses. A balance of payments economic crisis in
1991 compelled Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to adopt, as part of a financing
agreement with the International Monetary Fund, wide-ranging economic liberalization
and decentralization reforms. This had an impact at both the national and state level.
Most notably, the ‘License Raj’ system of permits was dismantled and states were given
greater control over industrial policy. Chhibber and Kollman (1998; 2004) argue—in an
adaptation of the logic of Duverger's Law (Palfrey 1989)—that this decentralization
contributed to the fragmentation of the national political party system by reducing the
incentives of regional voters and politicians to associate with the party in control of
resources at the centre. Before 1991, the Congress-dominated central government could
micromanage public projects, deciding where they would be located and where private
investment would be approved. However, after the 1991 reforms this source of political
73
leverage was significantly reduced, particularly with regard to the control of private
investment. As a result, it became less costly for voters and politicians in India's states to
support alternative parties at the national and state level.
Second, as the Congress Party's popularity began to fade at the turn of the 1990s,
opposition parties discovered that they could successfully lure voters away with
ethnicity-based programmatic appeals, something that the Congress Party's cadre
programmatic model was poorly placed to do. These conditions created an opening for
the rise of ethnic–programmatic parties. The reason that these new parties took on a
programmatic form instead of just a clientelistic one was that programmatic appeals,
with an ethnic focus, represent the comparative advantage of new entrants—which still
could not compete with the Congress Party in terms of access to patronage, even after
the reforms of the early 1990s. Mobilizing voters on the basis of programmatic linkages
meant that new parties did not have to compete with Congress in terms of the
distribution of patronage. By competing on the basis of a combination of identity and
policy, the new entrants could carve out a space for themselves within the political
system without first needing to access vast political funds.
In her study of 'ethnic parties' in India, Chandra (2004) argues that as an umbrella-type
organization the Congress Party was ill positioned to compete ideologically with
specialized parties dedicated to particular social cleavages and programmatic causes.
She argues, for example, that while the Congress Party had traditionally courted
scheduled caste voters in Uttar Pradesh, as a party representing many constituencies
and interests it was unable to make strong commitments to this group openly (for fear
of alienating other constituencies). She notes that this severely constrained Congress
Party politicians during elections: ‘Although in [the prominent Uttar Pradesh Congress
Party leader's] speech she twice raised grievances associated with Scheduled Castes,
such as untouchability, she raised these issues as a national leader concerned with the
problems of one of the many groups that made up her constituency, rather than as a
champion of the Scheduled Castes. Significantly, even in everyday conversations about
Scheduled Castes, Kumar prefers to use the term 'they' rather than we' (Chandra 2004:
151).
By contrast, BSP leaders such as Mayawati, herself a Dalit, have had few qualms
aggressively championing the cause of the Scheduled Castes. This flexibility has enabled
the BSP to better target and encroach upon electoral constituencies traditionally held by
the Congress Party and to overcome BSP's initial relative disadvantage in terms of
access to patronage. The BSP received particularly strong financial and political support
from middle- and upper-class members of the scheduled castes—a growing social
contingent—who were no longer content with the nominal representation provided by
the Congress Party and saw the BSP as a political tool to obtain social respect and
dignity (Chandra 2000).
Similarly, as a party that seeks to represent both Muslim and Hindu voters the Congress
Party has been committed to an official policy of secularism since independence. This
rendered the party ill equipped to compete ideologically against the BJP’s hindutva
platform. At the same time, the organizational weakness of the Congress Party made it
vulnerable to challenges from parties capable of building an extensive grassroots
organization and volunteer base, which the BJP has been able to do through its historical
links with Hindu social movements and volunteer organizations such as the RSS.
Thachil's (2011) account of this process is particularly striking because it documents the
effectiveness of the BJP grassroots organization in winning over even poorer voters,
large numbers of whom have voted for the BJP in multiple states and elections. Poor
voters are thought to be an unlikely pro-BJP constituency given the party's traditional
74
popularity among upper-caste Hindu voters. But by embedding themselves within local
communities and establishing a reputation for pro-poor services and activism, Thachil
argues, BJP social organizers have successfully attracted even poor voters to the party.
By comparison, the limited grassroots linkages of the Congress Party contributed to the
once-ruling party’s inability to check the rise of new rivals.
This explanation of the breakdown of Congress Party hegemony raises the question of
why the BJP and BSP reduced their focus on ethnicity-based appeals, moving away from
the very strategy that first elevated them to political prominence. This is best explained
as the product of intense political party competition in a diverse democracy. Both the
BJP and the BSP rose to prominence during the early 1990s on the basis of support from
relatively narrow ethnic constituencies: in the case of the BJP, upper-caste Hindus in
northern India; in the case of the BSP, Dalits in Uttar Pradesh. Although these areas
represented stable ‘vote banks’ they are national minorities and so are insufficient
sources of support for parties seeking national office. For example, Dalits only make up
17 per cent of the overall Indian electorate (Varshney 2000). Moreover, in an era of
coalition government in which any party must attract allies in order to form a national
government, parties could risk alienating all of their potential partners and so must
moderate some of their appeals (Varshney 2000).
As a result, the BJP and the BSP have sought to rebrand themselves as parties with a
wider appeal. Interestingly, this process has occurred at the national level and also
within some states. At the national level, BJP leaders have sought to move beyond
upper-caste Hindu voters in Northern India to attract voters in southern and eastern
India. As religion is not as important a social cleavage in these areas, this has required
the BJP to focus on other more programmatic issues. Similarly, in order to attract lowercaste voters, who make up much of the Indian electorate, the BJP has been forced to
advocate policies that focus on issues such as providing more effective government
services. At the state level, BJP governments have stopped tolerating or tacitly
encouraging violence against the Muslim minority in states where intense political
competition compels the government to either seek the Muslim vote or to make
alliances with parties that rely on the Muslim vote (Wilkinson 2004). Thus, political
competition, in combination with India's social and geographical diversity, has
contributed over time to the emergence of parties with a more inclusive and
programmatic appeal.
Explaining variation in programmaticity in party politics at the state level
In addition to the developments discussed above, a second set of processes has
facilitated programmatic development at the state level. Again, economic liberalization
and the devolution of authority over economic policy promoted 'good governance'
programmatic parties because it afforded state-level chief ministers the policymaking
discretion to have a tangible impact on state economic performance with state-level
policy. As a result, chief ministers have been able to campaign credibly on the issue of
development. Moreover, the inter-state competition for private investment unleashed
by liberalization has magnified the potential rewards for pursuing pro-business policies.
Finally, demonstration effects played a major role in the spread of programmatic
approaches, with politicians, parties and voters in states across India learning from the
economic and political success of the 'Naidu model'.
Economic liberalization and decentralization transformed the federal dynamics of
India's economy. Prior to 1991, inter-state competition for investment was primarily a
political competition for central transfers—a game in which the federal government was
the decisive player. After 1991, in the words of Rudolph and Rudolph (2001: 1541),
75
‘state chief ministers became the marquee players in India's federal market economy.’ In
1996, a group of state chief ministers even held a conference to discuss their new-found
federal autonomy, adopting for the meeting the triumphant slogan ‘federalism without a
centre’ (Saez 2002: 12). This development has had major implications for party politics.
When state economic fortunes depended largely on transfers and project approvals
from the centre, state chief ministers and political parties faced little pressure or
incentives to campaign on the issue of development or to implement innovative policies
within their states. This is reflected in the fact that before 1991 state-level economic
policies were relatively uniform (Howes et al. 2003). After 1991, however, with the
devolution of industrial policymaking authority to the states, state chief ministers
became responsible for a much greater share of their own states' development (Sinha
2005). Indian states could now borrow directly from institutional lenders as well as the
private sector. More importantly, with the deregulation of private investment, Indian
state economies could now access significant foreign and domestic direct private
investment.
For the first time, good governance made sense as an election issue. Chandrababu Naidu
was one of the first to demonstrate that there were major potential gains, both economic
and political, to be had by adopting an aggressive good governance programme and proinvestment industrial policy. Naidu, a political entrepreneur of the highest order,
worked tirelessly to attract private investment to Andhra Pradesh: ‘from Dallas to
Davos, he promoted his ambitious plans to transform Andhra Pradesh from a middle
rank into a top rank state’ (Rudolph and Rudolph 2001: 1542). He did this by taking
advantage of the new economic context. For example, the Naidu government was the
first state government in India to receive a direct sub-national loan from the World
Bank, which provided over $1 billion of funding for power sector reform and industrial
development (Sinha 2005: 87). This boost to government finances, which came shortly
in advance of state elections in 1999, played a significant role in Naidu's continued
electoral success.
There is little evidence to suggest that Andhra Pradesh possesses any unique structural
features which led to the emergence of this form of programmatic party politics. Rather,
scholars attribute this innovation largely to Naidu’s individual skill and drive: ‘In
contrast to [his predecessor's] penchant for slogans and irrepressible urge to enthral
audiences, Naidu chose to give emphatic accent on the developmental agenda and
navigate his party in a disciplined and workmanlike manner’ (Harshe and Srinivas
1999). The resulting boom in private investment, growth in jobs and rapid economic
development proved to be a remarkable electoral elixir, dampening criticism from
groups that lost political and economic influence under his administration, such as
farmers (Price 2010).
The precedent that it was possible to win elections on the basis of innovation and prodevelopment economic policy transformed the political landscape. Quickly, policy
variation and innovation across states emerged as a result of the attempts by various
leaders to follow in Naidu’s footsteps: ‘The situation by the end of the nineties was quite
different [to the situation before]. Individual states took a lead in introducing reforms in
different areas’ (Howes et al. 2003: 4). Rudolph and Rudolph (2001) term this change in
the style of state-level politics the ‘iconization’ of Chandrababu Naidu. Price (2010)
describes it as a shift in rhetorical focus from poverty to development, with ‘staples of
populist politics, including subsidies of food, electricity, fertilizer, seed, etc.’ losing
ground to concerns about growth and investment.
The media in India, as well as NGOs, many of which receive funding from international
donors, have played an important role in propagating the discourse of good governance
76
by reporting regularly on issues of political corruption (Wilkinson 2007). But the interstate spread of programmaticity was also a simple case of demonstration effects
operating within a federal system. Besley and Case (1995) suggest a model of political
‘yardstick competition’ in which rational voters utilize the experiences of nearby
jurisdictions to judge their own political incumbents. This logic applies just as much to
programmatic party politics as other forms of evaluation. Moreover, Howes et al support
the idea that state-level politicians in India learn about policies from other state-level
politicians: ‘First, we would point to a strong contagion effect at work […] Movement
between [the states] is fluid, news spreads and innovations seen to be successful in one
state quickly becomes candidates for adoption in others, often with the intermediation
of the central government, though sometimes by direct transfusion, as it were’ (2003: 4).
Of course, a further factor that has facilitated the diffusion of this model is the role of
national political parties themselves. If a leader from a given party successfully
implements a new model in one part of the country, the party is likely to encourage
other leaders to pursue a similar approach in other parts of the country. BJP state
governments and chief ministers, such as Narendra Modi of Gujarat and Ashok Gehlot of
Rajasthan, have developed notable reputations for good governance in multiple states,
and have clearly been an example for other BJP candidates.
Even if such processes of diffusion failed to operate, market forces may well have played
a crucial role in propagating the 'Naidu model' in any case. States that have cultivated a
business-friendly image have thrived economically since 1991, while those that have
failed to do so have stagnated. Sinha (2005: 19) observes, for example, that ‘Gujarat
attracted about 10.6 times as much per capita private investment as West Bengal for the
period 1991–2003.’ Similar disparities exist across other pairs of states. Consistent with
theories of 'market-preserving federalism' (Weingast 1995), economic competition has
rewarded states that have publicly pursued business-friendly policies and sanctioned
those that have failed to do so. Put another way, states that do not adopt good
governance reforms are likely to go out of business, just like a failing company that fails
to embrace innovation. Observes Wilkinson (2007: 133): 'State governments, in part to
gain access to World Bank loans and in part to show investors and voters they are doing
something about corruption, have also begun to pass freedom of information laws and
introduce computerization of records that will, over time, provide fewer opportunities
for politicians to extract rents'. Thus, the sub-national competition for private
investment in post-liberalization India has induced parties to cultivate reputations for
good governance.
Yet there is also a limit to the impact of structural and learning factors, for despite
liberalization in 1991 and the success of the Naidu model, many states have not yet seen
the emergence of good governance parties, while programmatic parties have emerged in
surprising places, such as Bihar. Wilkinson (2007), for example, writing just a few years
back, expressed doubt about the possibility of reform of the clientelistic political
environment in Bihar: 'In some cases, such as Bihar, where levels of economic growth
are very low or negative and the middle-class out-migration is high, it is hard to see any
real push for reform succeeding except in the very long term, absent an intervention
from the central government' (2007: 138). Despite all of the mentioned structural
impediments, Nitish Kumar has been able to reform Bihar, largely due to his personal
political skill. This highlights the continued significance of political agency. The presence
of committed political entrepreneurs, such as Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi and
Chandrababu Naidu, appears to be a crucial and unpredictable ingredient in the
emergence of programmatic party politics.
77
3.5 Effects of Programmatic Politics
Programmatic development has had an impact on policymaking at both the national and
state levels. At the national level, governments have been more likely to produce
efficacious public policies and govern effectively, despite an increasingly fragmented
party system and the residue of identity-based parties. This is reflected in the economic
reforms that have been endorsed by both the BJP and Congress, and have led to two
decades of solid GDP growth. Moreover, the emergence of parties with a greater policy
focus appears to have helped to prevent the political system from becoming mired in
deadlock: a real concern given the continual need for coalition governments.
In the current context, parties must work hard to overcome the disconnect between
mass politics and elite policymaking that characterized the era of Congress Party
hegemony, because failure to reflect the public mood can undermine a party’s electoral
chances. Consider the BJP's disastrous 'India Shining' campaign during the 2004 general
elections, which was viewed as callously over-optimistic in light of the poverty that the
majority of Indians endure and contributed to a resounding electoral defeat. The focus
of policy debates has also changed, and they are now more likely to feature discussion of
what can be done to help some of the worst off. 'Reservations', or affirmative action
policies, have become a politicized and polarizing issue, with parties such as the BSP
pushing for quotas in higher education and government for disadvantaged groups and
with the BJP opposing such measures. Indeed, the new-found pressure to earn votes
with economic policies was an important factor behind the decision of a Congress Partyled government to implement the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2005, a
major policy initiative which guaranteed every rural household in India one hundred
days of paid government work per year. Thus, greater programmatic competition has
had a direct impact on the standard of living of ordinary Indians.
The rise of parties such as the BJP and BSP has effectively reduced the historic gap
between elite policymaking and mass politics, but the effect of greater programmatic
competition has not all been positive. Critics argue that as a result of the growing
influence of regional political parties and the increasing focus of political parties on
electoral politics, the quality of legislative policymaking in India has declined. Certainly,
legislative attendance and the amount of time spent drafting and debating bills has
steadily fallen. This has many roots. Some critics argue that it is a product of the fact that
Indian MPs increasingly come from less distinguished backgrounds, with experience
mainly in the rough and tough world of local politics. It is striking that a large
percentage of Indian MPs today have criminal records (Kapur and Mehta 2006).
However, more research needs to be conducted in this area, as others argue that much
of the legislative work in parliament has simply shifted to committees. Moreover, there
are clear benefits to the changing composition of the legislature, which is now more
representative of the Indian population in terms of caste and class than ever before
(Shankar and Rodrigues 2011).
At the state level, meanwhile, programmatic parties have had mostly positive effects on
policy outcomes. Both Bihar and Gujarat, a low- and high-income state, respectively,
have experienced dramatic gains in economic productivity following the election of
programmatic parties. State GDP visibly took off in Gujarat shortly following the election
of Narendra Modi and the BJP in 2001 and in Bihar shortly following the election of
Nitish Kumar and the JDU in 2005. At the same time, state institutions have been
tremendously strengthened. Both Kumar and Modi are credited with cracking down on
corruption and overhauling inefficient bureaucracies. In Bihar, Kumar has strengthened
the police, the courts and the schools considerably, and has also stepped up spending on
78
infrastructure, most notably the road system (Chand 2010). For his part, Modi has been
noted for creating an extremely transparent, efficient and business- and investorfriendly bureaucracy (Sinha 2005).
However, there are also variations between states, which reflect the disposition of the
individuals and parties in power. Kumar's most remarkable achievement is perhaps the
restoration of law and order to Bihar, previously one of India's most violent and crimeridden states (Economist 2010a). Modi, by contrast, has a less positive record. A
prominent BJP leader, he has been accused of knowingly failing to stop anti-Muslim riots
in Gujarat in 2002 which resulted in the death of over 1,000 Muslims (Hindu 2011).
Here the tension between the different components of the BJP’s platform is laid bare—
although, as noted above, the party has moved away from this sort of behaviour as it has
consolidated as an ethnic–programmatic party.
3.6 Lessons and Policy Implications from the Indian Case
India offers several 'portable' lessons with regard to programmatic party politics.
First, party programmaticity is a complicated quality and can emerge through a number
of different processes. The evolution of the BJP from an ethnic party to an ethnic–
programmatic party, for instance, involved a period in which the party’s Hindu
nationalist programme led to violence against Muslims. The BJP represents a coherent
and stable set of ideological policies, but many of these are not normatively desirable.
Even if the BJP continues to abandon the more extreme aspects of its position and
consolidate as an ethnic–programmatic party, its linkages to voters and policies are
likely to be less conducive to national unity and political stability than that of a civic–
programmatic party. It is therefore vital that democracy promotion actors take a critical
attitude with regard to what forms of programmaticity they seek to promote.
Political competition in a diverse democracy can induce political parties to moderate
their emphasis on ethnic cleavages. Both the BJP and the BSP have significantly
moderated their identity politics over time in order to widen the scope of their electoral
appeal in a competitive political environment. The reduction of barriers to national
political competition is therefore important to the long-term promotion of
programmaticity. This means that the promotion of campaign finance reform, the
modernization of electoral technology, the deployment of election observers, and other
instruments to induce or ensure robust political competition are important strategies
that donors and others can use to drive programmatic development.
Economic reforms can have a major impact upon programmaticity by altering the
resources and opportunity sets of political parties and political party leaders. In the
Indian case, economic liberalization and decentralization contributed to the decline of
clientelistic parties and the emergence of new parties in a programmatic mould. Given
this, it is important to keep in mind the relationship between economic and political
reform. Most obviously, anti-corruption campaigns and programmes to promote fiscal
accountability and transparency should be supported because they are likely to
indirectly promote programmatic development in the long run.
At the same time, the devolution of key policymaking responsibilities to the sub-national
level may encourage sub-national politicians and parties to adopt programmatic
strategies and to compete to demonstrate their good governance credentials. By
supporting programmes of devolution—where conditions on the ground render them
79
feasible—international actors such as IDEA can help to create the conditions under
which parties and leaders have an incentive to adopt programmatic positions.
Demonstration effects can be crucial in the spread of programmatic party politics. The
success of Chandrababu Naidu and the TDP established a precedent that led to the
adoption of programmatic strategies in a number of other states, notably Bihar and
Gujarat. The rapid spread of ‘good governance’ models demonstrates the great
importance of education, communication and training.
Organizing events in which such lessons can be more easily communicated to aspiring
political leaders is therefore a very feasible way in which the democracy promotion
community can advance the position of programmatic parties. This may be implemented
though the facilitation of dialogue between parties across states, the facilitation of
dialogue between parties and civil society organizations, and the provision of policy
advice and consulting services.
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