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• Barthwal, Ankita & Jensenius, Francesca Refsum (2026). Loyal voters in volatile elections: Partisanship and voting behavior in India. Party Politics. ISSN 1354-0688. doi: 10.1177/13540688261430531. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Partisan loyalties have been found to stabilize voting behavior in democracies with strongly institutionalized party systems. This article considers how party exit and weak partisanship—two characteristics of weakly institutionalized party systems—undermine partisanship’s stabilizing effect on voting patterns. Drawing on the Indian National Election Study from 2019 and an original survey on partisanship in northern India, we show that whereas partisan voting does not look high at first glance, partisans are likely to support their preferred party when it is actually on the ballot. Further, when their preferred party is on the ballot, partisans have higher turnout and vote in a more stable manner than non-partisans. These patterns are stronger among those with longer-standing or more intensely felt attachments. Our findings highlight the importance of taking both the electoral landscape and variation in partisanship strength into account when studying the effects of partisanship in new contexts.

• Barthwal, Ankita & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2025). Motivations for partisan attachment in the developing world. Electoral Studies: an international journal on voting and electoral systems and strategy. ISSN 0261-3794. 94. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102896. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In developing countries, partisanship is pervasive, but its motivations remain largely unexplored. Whereas non-programmatic party–voter linkages dominate the political discourse in these contexts, we posit that such linkages are probably not the sole motivating factor behind partisanship. Drawing on interviews and an original survey from India – a context rife with non-programmatic exchanges – we find that partisans generally attribute their loyalty to parties’ ideological positions and policy platforms. This finding is reinforced by a priming experiment in which respondents made to reflect on parties’ ideologies and policies were more likely to self-report as partisans. Priming non-programmatic party–voter linkages in the form of community-based favoritism produces no discernible effect. Exploring differences between those attributing their own partisan loyalty to more programmatic or more non-programmatic motivations, we find the former group to be more consistent in their voting patterns and more likely to report negative partisanship, though both groups express similar levels of affective partisan attachment. Our findings underscore the need for more nuanced theorizing of partisanship and its effects in the developing world.

• Barthwal, Ankita & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2024). Women and corruption in South Asia. In Bacchus, Emily & Barnes, Tiffany (Ed.), Handbook on Gender and Corruption in Democracies. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781803923239. p. 277–291. doi: 10.4337/9781803923246.00032. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter reviews research on women and corruption in public office in South Asia. Overall, we find little evidence of a gender gap in corruption in politics in South Asia, especially in high-level office. We argue that this is related to how women enter into politics and the incentives they face while in office. In high-level positions, most women enter politics because of familial connections, and they are unlikely to succeed in the high-stakes political game unless they are willing and able to play as tough as their male colleagues. At the local level, on the other hand, women mostly come to power through electoral quotas. Here, the evidence suggests that women are less prone to corrupt behavior initially, though among more seasoned local politicians, men and women are as likely to engage in dishonest or corrupt behavior. These findings indicate that until institutional-level reforms take place that reduce corruption overall, inclusion of women alone will not be enough to dent widespread corruption.

• Barthwal, Ankita & Ali, Asim (2021). Bypassing the Patronage Trap: Evidence from Delhi Assembly Election 2020. Studies in Indian Politics. ISSN 2321-0230. 9(2), p. 254–272. doi: 10.1177/23210230211043081. Full text in Research Archive

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• Barthwal, Ankita & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2024). Partisanship’s Striking Resilience in India. In Vaishnav, Milan (Eds.), How Indian Voters Decide. Carnegie Endowment for International peace. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Despite wide vote swings and party switching from election to election, India’s 2024 contest may well be decided by the substantial segment of partisan loyalists who offer unwavering support to their parties.

• Jensenius, Francesca R. & Barthwal, Ankita (2023). Partisanship, contingency, and ideology in the developing world. Full text in Research Archive
• Barthwal, Ankita (2025). Partisanship in Unlikely Places. Causes and Consequences of Partisan Attachment in Developing Democracies. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This doctoral thesis investigates the causes and consequences of partisanship in developing democracies. Partisanship—defined as a deep-seated and enduring attachment to a political party—has a profound influence on people’s opinions and behavior. It shapes how individuals perceive politics, process information, choose whom to vote for in elections, and decide which political causes to support. The influence of partisanship on these aspects has led scholars to conclude that it is a cornerstone of democratization in many advanced democracies. In developing democracies, party systems differ markedly from advanced democracies. Political competition in these settings is often marked by greater volatility, and parties typically have weak ties to voters—conditions generally seen as unfavorable to the development of partisan attachment. Surprisingly, however, recent research finds evidence of partisanship even in these contexts. Across developing democracies such as Brazil, Mexico, and India, a segment of voters identify as partisans of specific political parties. The causes and consequences of such partisan attachment though have remained under-explored. This thesis aims to address this gap by examining partisan attachment in India. As a prototypical developing democracy, India provides a suitable setting for this inquiry. Despite long experience with electoral competition, the Indian party system is weakly institutionalized, characterized by frequent party splits, mergers, and shifting ties between parties and voters. The presence of partisanship among a segment of voters in such a setting raises fundamental questions about what causes such partisanship to develop and what its attitudinal and behavioral consequences may be. To address this central inquiry, this thesis uses a mixed method approach combining survey experiments, panel data, archival research, and fieldwork. The findings reveal three key insights. First, partisan attachment can arise from multiple coexisting motivations: some voters are drawn to parties through ideological or programmatic appeals, while others form attachments through non-programmatic benefits. Second, even in the face of weak party brands and high electoral volatility, partisan attachment can persist and meaningfully shape people’s opinions about government performance and accountability, as well as their voting behavior, leading them to vote loyally without strategic consideration. Third, historical legacies may help explain why party-voter relations in developing democracies generally remain weak, even though some voters develop partisan attachment: The emergence of elite-centric party strategy during colonial rule established path-dependent patterns that constrained broad-based voter mobilization and contributed to generally weak party-voter relations. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that far from being a peripheral phenomenon, meaningful partisanship can have a substantial impact even in developing democracies. The contemporary political moment is marked by deep partisan divides. In advanced democracies, partisan attachment has become a major driver of rising polarization and increasingly rigid political positions, contributing to a decline in the overall quality of democracy. In developing settings where democratic institutions are already fragile, the findings of this thesis highlight the need for sustained scholarly attention to partisanship and its far-reaching implications for democratic health.

• Narayanan, Vidya; Kollanyi, Bence; Hajela, Ruchi; Barthwal, Ankita; Marchal, Nahema & Howard, Philip (2019). News and information over Facebook and WhatsApp during the Indian election campaign. Oxford Internet Institute. Full text in Research Archive

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