The ethnicity distraction? Political credibility and partisan preferences in Africa

Abstract: A large literature concludes that competition among ethnic groups causes policy failure, slow growth, and civil war. An alternative view is that features of political competition such as the lack of credibility of political promises give rise to both ethnic competition and adverse development outcomes. If political parties credibly represent the collective interests of ethnic groups, the first view is more likely to be true. Data from Afrobarometer surveys in 16 sub-Saharan African countries suggest, though, that parties‟ ethnic appeals are not credible. Ethnic clustering of political support is less widespread than believed; members of clustered ethnic groups are no more likely to express a partisan preference than others; even when they are more likely, they exhibit high rates of partisan disinterest that are inconsistent with credible ethnic appeals; and, finally, partisan preferences are at least as affected by factors such as gift-giving. These findings emphasize the importance of looking beyond ethnicity in analyses of African economic development. Acknowledgements: The empirical analysis in this paper was made possible by the expert programming of Marek Hanusch, whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged. The paper has benefited from the comments of David Laitin and exchanges with Gary Jacobson on an earlier version of this paper, from the comments of Susanne Mueller, and from participants at a seminar at the University of Michigan, presentations at the meetings of the America