Historically, ethnicity has been considered to play a fundamental role in voting behaviour in Africa. However, researchers on the issue have found contradictory conclusions. The most recent research concludes that the African voter is more rational than expected. Overall ethnicity seems to be less influential than theory used to suggest. Against this background, this paper analyses vote for governing party in Africa and presents evidence that the method and data set used will have an important influence upon the final result. The research takes form of a quantitative analysis making extensive use of survey data from 2005 to 2019. Results indicate that ethnicity, although not exclusively, is still an explanatory factor. At a glance, African vote is rationally ethnic.
AbramsonPROstromCW (1991) Macropartisanship: an empirical assessment. American Political Science Review85: 181–192.
2.
AdidaCL (2015) Do African voters favor coethnics? Evidence from a survey experiment in Benin. Journal of Experimental Political Science2(1): 1–11.
3.
AlesinaADevleeschauwerAEasterlyW, et al. (2003) Fractionalization. Journal of Economic Growth8(2): 155–194.
4.
ArpinoBObydenkovaAV (2020) Democracy and political trust before and after the great recession 2008: the European union and the United Nations. Social Indicators Research148: 395–415.
5.
BartleJ (1998) Left–right position matters, but does social class? Causal models of the 1992 British general elections. British Journal of Political Science28: 501–529.
6.
BatesRH (1974) Ethnic competition and modernization in contemporary Africa. Comparative Political Studies6(4): 457–484.
7.
BrattonMKimenyiMS (2008) Voting in Kenya: putting ethnicity in perspective. Journal of Eastern African Studies2(2): 272–289.
8.
BrattonMBhavnaniRChenT-H (2012) Voting intentions in Africa: ethnic, economic or partisan?Commonwealth & Comparative Politics50(1): 27–52.
9.
BrattonMMattesR (2001) Support for democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or instrumental?British Journal of Political Science31(3): 447–474.
10.
BrodyRARothenbergLS (1988) The instability of partisanship: an analysis of the 1980 presidential election. British Journal of Political Science18: 445–465.
11.
BurgessRJedwabRMiguelE, et al. (2015) The value of democracy: evidence from road building in Kenya. American Economic Review105(6): 1817–1851.
12.
CampbellAConversePEMillerWE, et al. (1960) The American Voter. Chicago: CUP.
13.
CarlsonE (2015) Ethnic voting and accountability in Africa: a choice experiment in Uganda. World Politics67(2): 353–385.
14.
ChandraK. (2007) Counting heads: a theory of voter and elite behavior in patronage-democracies. In: KitscheltH.WilkinsonS. (eds), Patrons, Clients, and Policies. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 84–109.
15.
ChazanN (1982) Ethnicity and politics in Ghana. Political Science Quarterly97(3): 461–485.
16.
CheesemanNFordR (2007) Ethnicity as a political cleavage. Afrobarometer WorkingPaper No. 83.
17.
ClarkeHDStewartMCWhiteleyPF (1998) New models for the new labor: the political economy of labor party support – January 1992 April 1997. American Political Science Review92: 559–575.
18.
Conroy-KrutzJ (2012) Information and ethnic politics in Africa. British Journal of Political Science43(2): 345–373.
19.
DaltonRWattenbergM (1993) The not so simple act of voting. In: FiniterAda W (ed), The State of the Discipline. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.
20.
De BoefSKeeleL (2008) Taking time seriously. American Journal of Political Science52(1): 184–200.
21.
DicksonESScheveK (2006) Social identity, political speech and electoral competition. Journal of Theoretical Politics18(1): 5–39.
22.
DownsA (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins.
23.
EifertBMiguelEPosnerDN (2010) Political competition and ethnic identification in Africa. American Journal of Political Science54(2): 494–510.
24.
ErdmannG (2007) The cleavage model, ethnicity and voter alignment in Africa: conceptual and methodological problems revisited. GIGA Working Papers. No. 63.
25.
FairbrotherM (2014) Two multilevel modelling techniques for analysing comparative longitudinal survey datasets. Political Science Research and Methods2(1): 119–140.
26.
FearonJD (2003) Ethnic and cultural diversity by country. Journal of Economic Growth8(2): 195–222.
27.
FerreeKE (2004) The micro-foundations of ethnic voting: evidence from South Africa. Afrobarometer WorkingPaper No. 40.
28.
FerreeKE (2006) Explaining South Africa’s racial census. The Journal of Politics68(4): 803–815.
29.
FranklinCHJacksonJE (1983) The dynamics of party identification. American Political Science Review77: 957–973.
30.
FridyKS (2007) The elephant, umbrella, and quarrelling cocks: disaggregating partisanship in Ghana’s forth republic. African Affairs106(423): 281–305.
31.
GelmanA (2005) Two-stage regression and multilevel modelling: a commentary. Political Analysis13: 459–461.
32.
HausmanJA (1978) Specification tests in econometrics. Econometrica46: 1251–1271.
33.
HedekerDJ. de Leeuw, E. Meijers (2007) Multilevel models for ordinal and nominal variables. Hanbook of multilevel analysis. New York: Springer, 341–376.
34.
HorowitzDL (1985) Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
35.
HoutMBrooksCManzaJ (1995) The Democratic Class Struggle in the United States, 1948-1992. American Sociological Review60(6): 805–828.
36.
IchinoNNathanNL (2013) Crossing the line: local ethnic geography and voting in Ghana. American Political Science Review107(2): 344–361.
37.
LazarfeldPFBerelsonBGaudetH (1944) The People’s Choice. New York: Columbia University Press.
38.
LindbergSIMorrisonMKC (2008) Are African voters really ethnic or clientelistic? Survey evidence from Ghana. Political Science Quarterly123(1): 95–122.
39.
LipsetSMRokkanS (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments. New York: Free Press.
40.
LongJDGibsonCC (2015) Evaluating the roles of ethnicity and performance in African elections: evidence from an exit poll in Kenya. Political Research Quarterly68(4): 1–13.
41.
MackuenMBEriksonRSStimsonJA (1989) Macropartisanship. American Political Science Review83: 1125–1142.
42.
MartinNABradyD (2007) Workers of the less developed world unite? A multilevel analysis of unionization in less developed countries. American Sociological Review72: 562–584.
43.
MousseauDY (2001) Democratizing with ethnic divisions: a source of conflict?Journal of Peace Research38(5): 547–567.
44.
NorrisPMattesR (2003) Does ethnicity determine support for the governing party. Afrobarometer Working. Paper No. 26.
45.
PosnerDN (1995) Malawi’s new dawn. Journal of Democracy6(1): 131–145.
46.
PosnerDN (2007) Regime change and ethnic cleavages in Africa. Comparative Political Studies40(11): 1302–1327.
47.
PosnerDNSimonDJ (2002) Economic conditions and incumbent support in Africa’s new democracies: evidence from Zambia. Comparative Political Studies35(3): 313–336.
48.
RuiterSvan TubergenF (2009) Religious attendance in cross-national perspective: A multilevel analysis of 60 countries. American Journal of Sociology115(3): 863–895.
49.
ScarrittJR (2006) The strategic choice of multiethnic parties in zambia’s dominant and personalist party system. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics44(2): 234–256.
50.
Schmidt-CatranAWFairbrotherM (2016) The random effects in multilevel models: getting them wrong and getting them right. European Sociological Review32(1): 23–38.
51.
van de WalleN (2003) Presidentialism and clientelism in Africa’s emerging party systems. The Journal of Modern African Studies41(2): 297–321.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
