Replication Data for: Defiant Pride: Origins & Consequences of Ethnic Voting

Why do voters often remain loyal to ethnic parties despite receiving little in terms of material welfare? I develop a theory focused on the role of dignity concerns in explaining within-group variation in ethnic party loyalty. Group members who face discrimination from state agencies dominated by outgroups respond with defiant pride, which manifests as ethnicity becoming a larger part of the self-concept. This heightened ethnic identification creates a demand for recognition through descriptive representation. Consequently, high-identifying group members – often from lower social classes – are more forgiving of malfeasance by ethnic parties and more likely to trade off material for symbolic goods. I provide experimental, descriptive, and qualitative evidence for this argument from Karachi, Pakistan – a megacity ruled for three decades by a poorly governing ethnic party. This paper pushes the literature on ethnic voting beyond dominant instrumental approaches and underscores the necessity of systematically unpacking heterogeneity within ethnic groups.

为何选民即便在物质福利方面所得甚少，却仍常对民族政党保持忠诚？我提出一种理论，聚焦于尊严关切在解释民族政党忠诚度群体内差异中的作用。那些遭遇由外群体主导的国家机构歧视的群体成员，会以反抗性自豪作为回应——这体现为民族身份在其自我概念中占据更大比重。这种强化的民族认同催生了通过描述性代表制（descriptive representation）获得认可的需求。因此，民族认同度高的群体成员——往往来自社会底层——对民族政党的不当行为更为宽容，也更倾向于牺牲物质利益以换取象征性利益。我基于巴基斯坦卡拉奇的数据，为这一论点提供了实验、描述性及质性证据——这座特大城市由治理不善的民族政党统治了三十年。本文将民族投票研究文献从主流工具主义路径向前推进，并强调了系统剖析民族群体内部异质性的必要性。