Paper
Louise Tillin, Milan Vaishnav, Andy Robaina
{
"authors": [
"Milan Vaishnav"
],
"type": "other",
"centerAffiliationAll": "dc",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "ctw",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"programAffiliation": "SAP",
"programs": [
"South Asia"
],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"South Asia",
"India"
],
"topics": [
"Political Reform",
"Democracy"
]
}
Source: Getty
Other
Why Voters Sometimes Prefer Criminals as Candidates
Indian voters do not elect criminals out of ignorance. Instead, candidates with serious criminal records are sometimes preferred because their criminality signals their credibility.
Published on Oct 1, 2016
Source: Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions
In democracies around the world, candidates who stand accused or convicted of criminal misconduct routinely win elections and assume important positions. According to data collected by Transparência Brasil, 60% of Brazil’s federal legislators have either been convicted of a crime or are the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. Ahead of Nigeria’s 2015 election, candidates openly brandished their allegiances to militia groups or criminal gangs while canvassing for votes. The cozy relationship between criminal malfeasance and democratic politics is by no means restricted to the developing world. A May 2016 report in the New York Times revealed that as many as 30 current and former state legislators in New York have been convicted, indicted, or accused of engaging in criminal wrongdoing in the past decade alone.....
About the Author
Milan Vaishnav
Director and Senior Fellow, South Asia Program
Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program and the host of the Grand Tamasha podcast at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His primary research focus is the political economy of India, and he examines issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behavior. He also conducts research on the Indian diaspora.
- Delimitation After Defeat: India’s Unfinished Debate Over Representation
- India and a Changing Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Trump 2.0 EraResearch
- +6
Milan Vaishnav, Sameer Lalwani, Tanvi Madan, …
Recent Work
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center
- Loyal but Powerless: The Downgrading of Russia’s ElitePaper
The ruling elites in contemporary Russia are not a political class, but a community of managers who are not subject to competition or public accountability. The state is becoming an operating apparatus without any internal autonomy.
Alexandra Prokopenko
- What Does Pashinyan’s Parliamentary Victory Mean for Armenia’s Future?Commentary
Pashinyan’s pro-European party has been re-elected with a decisive victory. But the pro-Russian opposition could still slow Armenia’s progress toward peace with Azerbaijan and rapprochement with Europe.
Mikayel Zolyan
- From Sovereigns to Servants. How the War Against Ukraine Reshaped Russia’s EliteBook
How did Putin co-opt Russia’s political and economic elites, ensuring no more than fitful resistance to the regime’s war on Ukraine?
Alexandra Prokopenko
- Will Russia–Armenia Relations Improve Following Pashinyan’s Re-Election?Commentary
For all the menacing rhetoric, the Armenian prime minister remains a leader with whom Putin is prepared to interact: not as an ally, but as a partner, albeit a problematic one.
Alexander Atasuntsev
- Who Does Azerbaijan Want to See Win Armenia’s Elections?Commentary
By fueling the arguments of both supporters and opponents of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijan wants to ensure he is re-elected with a weaker mandate.
Bashir Kitachaev
