Friday, April 17

No bad politicians, only misunderstood voters

I have never believed in this strange notion of "all politicians are bad", I believe it is always a case of where the true intent of voters is not understood.

A very interesting article by Madhav Raghavan based on a paper: "Public Disagreement" (Sethi, Yildiz), makes the that discussions and interactions among segregated groups could actually magnify initial biases. Especially when there are inherent bias shared in groups that are invisible or incomprehensible to external folks.

Madhav Raghavan writes

This is reflective of much of India’s caste-based politics, where leaders are able to unite a caste or sub-caste under one ideology, but in a manner that makes their collective views more opaque to everybody else. The Yadavs may unite under Lalu Prasad, but few who are not Yadavs may understand their motivations.

Sethi & Yildiz write

"Members of different social groups often hold widely divergent public beliefs regarding the nature of the world in which they live. Communication in segregated societes can cause initial biases to be amplified, and new biases to emerge where none previously existed."

Also check out Nandan Nilekani's opinion of caste based politics

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