Policy Diffusion Among Domestic Political Parties in Multiparty Systems: An Analysis of Election Manifestos of Indian Political Parties

Do political parties adopt each others' ideas? This research argues that parties are more likely to employ party platforms from electorally successful domestic parties in a multiparty system while seeking public office. Focusing on religious issues as the issue of measurement, I studied 23 election manifestos of 7 political parties that opposed India's two biggest and historical parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), in the state and national elections during the period of 2004 to 2022. I have analyzed the changes made in the manifesto of these parties to gain insight into the influence these parties have on each other. I find that parties tend to drop minority welfare policies, especially concerning Muslims, when they run against the BJP, and parties tend to highlight minority welfare policies when they run against INC. Further, I find that parties tend to mention more religious topics while running against the BJP