Land Rights Recognition and Political Participation: Evidence from India
研究印度森林土地权利立法如何影响原住民社区的政治参与，发现土地所有权申请增加促使更多原住民作为候选人参与选举，尤其被拒绝的申请推动了这一增长。
This paper studies the impact of property rights legislation on the political participation of Scheduled Tribes (STs) - an indigenous community of India. The legislation recognised forest land rights of STs who had been historically residing over forests without formal land titles. Utilising administrative data on land titles, we show that increased demand for land titles increases the political participation of STs as election candidates. This increase is on account of new political candidates that are contested by non-mainstream political parties. We provide evidence that incomplete implementation, that raises but does not meet expectations, is the mechanism. In particular, land title applications that are rejected by sub-district/district-level authorities are driving this increase. Our results suggest that land titling legislations can encourage marginalised beneficiary groups to use political participation as a means to establish their land rights.