9 - Keeping up the Balance between the Federation and the States

Summary

Emergency provisions allow governments to intervene swiftly, but also create opportunities for political capture. We analyze how this tension plays out in the largest federal republic in the world, India. Article 356 of the Indian Constitution (known as president’s rule) allows the union (federal) cabinet to dismiss a functioning state government and dissolve the elected state legislature, if the federally appointed state governor recommends the dismissal due to political crises, natural disasters, riots, and so forth. Using an original panel dataset of Indian states from 1952 until 2019, we find that emergency provisions allow for political capture increasing federal dominance in India. We find that: (1) the likelihood of invoking Article 356 is almost exclusively determined by the political strength of the parties in majority/coalition governments at the state level; (2) emergencies like riots and natural disasters are not significant predictors of invoking Article 356; and (3) judicial safeguards added in 1994 significantly reduced the imposition of Article 356.