Curious for your thoughts!

Thanks Vicente!

Thanks so much, Hakeem!

Paper available open access and comments welcome: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

When groups perceive persistent devaluation — whether they are minorities facing discriminatory institutions or dominant groups facing status loss — demands for recognition, respect and dignity can outweigh material considerations.

Evidence from 100+ interviews dovetails with the experimental and descriptive findings and echoes aspects of work outside Pakistan: Hall, @noamgidron.bsky.social and @pavisuri.bsky.social on status concerns, Nyron Crawford on the “racial defense,” and Jeffrey Witsoe on lower-caste politics.

Lower-class group members are more likely to face such discrimination and suffer quotidian humiliation from non-coethnic street-level bureaucrats. The empirical evidence supports this reading rather than alternatives centered on clientelism, social networks, or occupational prestige.

The core concept I develop is defiant pride: when state institutions discriminate against a group, more exposed members double down on their identity as a psychological defense mechanism. This manifests as ethnicity becoming a larger part of the self-concept, which shapes preferences and beliefs.

But not all voters value dignity equally: using an identity allocation measure, I show that high ethnic identifiers are more likely to seek recognition and forgive malfeasance. Why do some voters become so attached to their ethnic identities? And why are they more often from lower social classes?

I show through a preregistered experiment that a non-coethnic politician must perform better on material dimensions to match the support a coethnic gains by simply emphasizing dignity concerns. This lowered performance threshold is the “slack” descriptive representatives receive.

Many voters aren’t trading their vote for goods or patronage. They’re seeking recognition in a political system that routinely devalues them, but this demand for dignity can weaken accountability. The paper presents experimental, qualitative, and descriptive evidence in support of this claim.

Congratulations!

Bluesky needs to allow bookmarking!

@rahsaanmax.bsky.social just pointed this post out to me. Thanks for engaging! I consider how the theory travels to the case you mention in the book project, and I don't think the application is a stretch (at all :))

Would love to be added thanks :)

Love this for past you

Read Master and Margarita earlier this year and adored it.