tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15602189.post924837430656274387..comments2023-09-21T16:17:51.838+05:30Comments on Law and Other Things: Does terrorism influence voter decision?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09348738084817273397noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15602189.post-62471602104875338732008-12-20T11:15:00.000+05:302008-12-20T11:15:00.000+05:30If our politician stops vote and appeasment polic...If our politician stops vote and appeasment policy, terrorism in India can be tamed withing one month or less. Its our crooked ploitician which bake their vote bread and does not take terrorism as serious subject.<A HREF="http://www.mumbaishopping.biz" REL="nofollow">Mumbai</A> is glaring example. Inspite of Mumbai burinign for two days, did our plitician come togeter and released joint statement against Terrorist?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15602189.post-70786606389335594982008-12-20T09:07:00.000+05:302008-12-20T09:07:00.000+05:30I am not sure with taking Israel as an example or ...I am not sure with taking Israel as an example or a base to understand what is the underlying dynamic in voter behavior in India. For one, Israel is a highly "Spartanised" and militarised nation, with many of its citizens "subjected" to compulsory drafts and forever living in a "siege" state and mentality. It is too easy to distinguish between the various political parties on the 2D-spectrum as left/right; but it is anybody's guess that these parties share a common vision on Israel's positions on the important issues of the day- status of Palestine, unresolved questions on Jerusalem, settlements, Lebanon, offensive defense, targetted assassinations of "threats", relations with the United States, other Arabic states etc. I for one, having followed years of the Palestininian issue, don't quite see a major difference between the Likud, the Labour and the newly formed Kadima (heck, Ariel "the monster" Sharon was the founder of the "centrist" Kadima). It is therefore folly to impress the findings from Israel onto empirical work yet to be done in India. While Dilip's understanding of the conclusions are indeed pertinent (i.e. voter behaviour or preference is tuned to pre-existing beliefs that take root in taking positions on terror) and deserve research, the problem is that the research question is placed from the reverse end of the causative mechanism.. i.e. the conclusion from Israel is placed at the hypothesis end and that in my opinion is bad research methodology. Also from simple empirical information, one can notice that while indeed the BJP has lost the elections in Rajasthan and Delhi, it is not the case that the Congress incumbents here & there have retained their seats even in terror affected Jaipur and close by- which puts paid to the theory that "<I>apriori</I> left-leaning constituencies" vote on the issue of terrorism with a perception from the "left". The example of "Jamia Nagar" in <A HREF="http://search.eci.gov.in/ae_2008e/pollupd/ac/states/U05/Aconst54.htm" REL="nofollow">Okhla </A>constituency is the best one in my opinion to state VV's research question. This was the constituency which was supposed to have been riled up by the encounter killings at Batla House and was supposed to punish the Congress for its perceived insensitive handling. It turned out that the Congress came out as a facile winner in contrast, retaining the seat easily. Without post poll survey work, one can therefore surmise that the majority of the voters have rejected the thesis that the Batla House incidents and aftermath were a deliberate means of targetting the Muslim community or that the "encounter", as claimed by some of our liberal anti-establishmentarian fraternity were fake.Srinivasan Ramanihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13620263203764236450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15602189.post-38431904087880490252008-12-20T08:36:00.000+05:302008-12-20T08:36:00.000+05:30VV,Thanks for pointing to a detailed and fascinati...VV,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for pointing to a detailed and fascinating study. Table 9 and its explanation on pg. 292-3 are probably most pertinent to us. One of the points they make is that the rightward shift occurs in right-leaning localities and those left-leaning localities heavily affected by the terrorist attack but in the remaining left-leaning ones, support for the right bloc of parties is<EM> decreased</EM>. Based on their test to assess the terror impact on the particular locality for it to shift one way or the other, they estimate the numbers for the urban areas most hit by terrorist attacks as being a quarter of the population residing in those localities tilting rightward with the rest residing in other localities <EM>increasing </EM>their support for the left-bloc of parties. If this analogy holds true for India, this may be one explanation for the recent victory of the Congress in Delhi.<BR/><BR/>For other states such as Rajasthan where terrorist attacks have been limited to a small part of Jaipur, apart from the affected parts of the city, their overall impact would be expected to be positive in right-leaning constituencies and possibly negative in left-leaning ones (excluding any hit by the violence). The same would be true for the other large states. The outcome could therefore still go either way in these states. The effect of terrorism could probably be expected to have a greater effect as more and more areas get hit over time - in that case, some of these areas which may be left-leaning could be expected to turn to the right and those that are already right-leaning would be additionally reinforced.<BR/><BR/>Finally, why the <EM>decrease </EM>in support for the right-bloc in less-affected/non-affected left-leaning localities? The authors say: "Terror fatalities elsewhere appear to reinforce preexisting views of the electorate leading residents of left-leaning localities to emphasize non-violent solutions to the conflict instead of an increase in security and deterrence." Sounds familiar, doesn't it?Dilip Raohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18294894305584371011noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15602189.post-51163308494432627162008-12-20T00:12:00.000+05:302008-12-20T00:12:00.000+05:30Dear VV,From my "fly on the wall noticing", it see...Dear VV,<BR/><BR/>From my "fly on the wall noticing", it seems that the surveys were not commissioned because of a funding problem owing to the general downturn in the economy these days. Neither news channels nor marketing agencies were in a position to fund the surveys. <BR/><BR/>Having said that, surveys with a purpose of determining voter allegiance and voter interest in particular issues are generally okay, but identifying them as a trend to determine poll winners is a different ballgame altogether. I for one feel that the fragmentation in the Indian polity overall (despite polarisation and formation of some form of a rudimentary two-pole Duvergian division in state elections as pointed out by Pradip Chibbher in his <A HREF="http://www.polisci.berkeley.edu/Faculty/bio/permanent/Chhibber,P/Duvergerian%20Dynamics%20in%20the%20Indian%20States.pdf" REL="nofollow">paper</A>) has only made the pseudo-science of psephology even more like the obtuse predictions in the stock market. <BR/><BR/>Getting to this topic, I suppose a post poll survey has indeed been done by Lokniti and they would be releasing information pretty soon (please watch the space in EPW). What is interesting though is that in the states that were supposed to render the greatest swing in party preferences owing to the issue of terrorism as a poll issue- Delhi & Rajasthan (both of whom were affected by debilitating bomb attacks in their capitals); the BJP which raised the highest pitch over the issues came a cropper. <BR/><BR/>That suggests two things - a) Either the issue of terrorism didn't quite catch the imagination of the voter enough to affect his choice- which in turn was governed by issues of development and perception of the opposition <BR/>or<BR/>b) The voter saw terrorism and the failure to curb a collective political problem and refused to buy the BJP's theory that it was the party that had the better capability to solve the issue. This was besides other important issues of the day- primarily got to do with development, grassroots work of the parties and of course, identity considerations in terms of caste etc. <BR/><BR/>I think it is more of the latter for Delhi & Rajasthan. And hence <A HREF="http://srinivasanvr.blogspot.com/2008/12/bjp-worsted.html" REL="nofollow">this </A>was my diagnosis<BR/><BR/>-- SriniSrinivasan Ramanihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13620263203764236450noreply@blogger.com