Professor Heinze publishes in American Political Science Review
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- Professor Alyssa Heinze, who will be joining our department next fall, has published an article in the American Political Science Review.
Professor Alyssa Heinze, who will be joining our department next fall, has published an article in the American Political Science Review. Her article, "Democratic Deepening or Elite Persistence? How Local Elites Adapt to Electoral Reform in Rural India," addresses the problem of "elite capture" of local governance, where local executives lack de facto political authority because they are sidelined by unelected elites. She examines one potential institutional remedy: direct elections. Utilizing a quasi-experiment in rural Maharashtra, India, she finds that direct elections increase the de facto authority of local executives but, at the same time, do not disrupt elite dominance. Instead, she argues that direct elections shift the mode of elite capture from informal to formal channels, underscoring the limitations of institutional reforms.