Federal coalitions in India: Strategic calculations and revolving-door partners

Abstract

The lack of stability of political affiliations has been a recurrent theme in studies on political parties in India. Initially, this concern was voiced in terms of the defections of legislators from the party on whose ticket they were elected. With the advent of federal coalitions, shifting affiliations took on a new dimension, with parties themselves moving between different coalition fronts. This has often been seen as some form of idiosyncratic and undesirable behaviour and linked to the spectre of an ungovernable India by alarmists in search of supposedly more stable arrangements. We explain this party mobility by highlighting the federal dimension and its impact on party competition.