Connections and Elections in Lahore: How Network Centrality Affects Electoral Politics in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper creates a unique map of Lahore’s political and nonpolitical networks to gauge the degree to which the area’s politicians are interconnected. In Pakistan, a politician must be awarded a party ticket before standing for election; the candidate is usually a prominent and well-connected politician chosen from a pool of local politicians. By mapping these political and nonpolitical connections, we identify the most centrally located politicians on the basis of their eigenvector centrality. We use data on the 2013 provincial (Punjab Assembly) and National Assembly elections to look at the relationship between centrality and the likelihood of securing a party ticket and, subsequently, of winning a seat in the general elections. The results show that politics in Pakistan are fairly sophisticated; parties tend to field politically well-connected candidates from constituencies where previous elections were highly competitive to increase their odds of winning. At the provincial level, the results show that party tickets are awarded to candidates who are politically well-connected within and across parties, while elections are won by candidates who are politically and socially well connected within the party. This implies that, at the provincial level, voters give their ballots to the party rather than to individual candidates since only within-party connectedness matters. At the national level, the results reveal that tickets are awarded to candidates who are socially better connected within and across parties, but that elections are won by candidates who are politically better connected within and across parties. This implies that, at the national level, people vote for candidates who are politically better connected, possibly reflecting the belief that these connections will translate into greater political influence on the national stage.