ABSTRACT Of the many tasks elected representatives perform, constituency service is among the most difficult to observe and, therefore, to measure. However, a burgeoning literature uses digital tools such as email to experimentally evaluate the responsiveness of political elites to requests for constituency service. To date, this literature has overwhelmingly focused on the developed world. In this article, we describe the results of an email experiment in which we sent plausible, but fictitious constituency service requests to national legislators in India to evaluate their responsiveness, helpfulness, and possibly discriminatory behavior. While the overall response rate to our request is quite poor, those that do respond tend to offer “meaningful” responses. We find scant evidence of legislators discriminating on religious lines.

中文翻译：

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数字印度？与印度立法者的电子邮件实验

摘要各项任务所选代表表演，选区服务是最难观察的，因此衡量。然而，新兴文献使用电子邮件等数字工具来实验性地评估政治精英对选区服务请求的响应能力。迄今为止，这些文献主要集中在发达国家。在本文中，我们描述了一项电子邮件实验的结果，在该实验中，我们向印度的国家立法者发送了看似合理但虚构的选区服务请求，以评估他们的响应能力、乐于助人以及可能的歧视行为。虽然对我们请求的整体响应率相当低，但那些做出响应的人往往会提供“有意义”的响应。我们发现立法者在宗教方面存在歧视的证据很少。