India is the world’s largest democracy. One of the reasons why it is considered a “flawed” democracy is that elections are often “rigged” by the practice of political candidates paying “cash for votes” (CFV). CFV is potentially undermining democratic values and good governance. My talk provides a progress report on a project that uses large-scale surveys to identify determinants of why voters do (or do not) sell their votes in a rural border region of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We use regression analysis to study correlates of voters’ willingness to fight CFV, and their instrumental and non-instrumental motives to accept CFV. We also explore the causal effects of two interventions to mitigate CFV which relate to strengthening civicness among voters and improving transparency about politician characteristics.
(Image credit: B.PAC; https://bpac.in/election-habba-2018/my-vote-is-not-for-sale)