Third, when the state is unable to effectively deliver for all citizens, it often makes political sense to direct the state’s limited resources to narrow groups of base voters as opposed to investing in state capacity to better serve all citizens. This phenomenon is commonly known in India as vote-bank politics. As we’ll see in this chapter, weak state capacity contributes to vote-bank politics, and vote-bank politics further weakens state capacity, reinforcing each other in a vicious cycle.
