Speaker:
Pradeep Chhibber, UC Berkeley, Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies and Professor of Political Science

Scholars of ethnic conflict often posit that individuals strategically highlight the identity that will allow them to be part of the winning political coalition. Professor Chhibber argues that certain identities are easier to mobilize than other, above and beyond such strategic political concerns. Some identities, such as Hinduism in India, are largely mobilized through political parties and organizations, and they follow the political calculus. Other identities, however, have independent social organizations (i.e., mosques) that have the legitimacy to play a direct political role. Such identites are mobilized in fundamentally different ways than the former, and they can be mobilized by direct identity appeals even when the party system is not aligned around these identities.

Chhibber and his coauthor, Professor Sekhon, conducted various survey and get-out-the-vote experiments. Their survey experiments show that Muslims have greated confidence in political appeals if they appear to be from leaders using Muslim religious symbols. In contrast, Hindus, even if observant, do not report greater confidence in leaders using Hindu religious symbols. In their get-out-the-vote experiments, Muslims, unlike Hindus, are responsive to religious appeals even in a state where the political parties do not separate on the religious dimension. However, both Hindu and Muslim voters can be induced by subtle religious appeals to change their voting behavior in states where the political parties are religiously divided.

PS 595 Credit.