Conservative Parties and Women’s Political Mobilization: Evidence from India
Queue of women voters in Karnataka, India – May 22, 2008. Photo Credit: Public.Resource.Org
The 2014 national election in India saw an unprecedented increase in women’s political activity in public settings. But puzzlingly, most of this increase was in favor of the religiously conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) whose ideology espouses restrictions on women’s entry into public spaces. How did the BJP increase women’s participation? In this study, Anirvan develops a theory on how conservative parties can reduce the costs of women venturing into public spaces, and thereby increase their political participation. He plans to test this through an RCT fielded in the run-up to the 2019 national election in India.
