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.
