Political decentralization is often undermined by elite capture of the local state. In unequal contexts, contemporary accounts highlight that local executives lack de facto political authority because they are sidelined by unelected elites. This article investigates one purported institutional remedy: direct elections. Direct elections are promoted as a tool of democratic deepening that empowers local executives by disrupting elites’ hold on political institutions. Exploiting a quasi-experiment in rural Maharashtra, India, I find that direct elections increase the de facto authority of local executives. However, I find no evidence of disrupted elite dominance. Instead, I argue that direct elections shift the mode of elite capture from informal to formal channels. I use over two years of qualitative fieldwork, original survey and administrative data, and a vignette experiment to substantiate these claims. This study underscores the limitations of reforms to bring democracy “closer to the people” in contexts of entrenched elite dominance.
