Does ethnicity determine support for the governing party? the structural and attitudinal basis of partisan identification in 12 African nations

Structural theories predict that the cues of social identity, particularly ethnicity, should exert a strong influence upon voting choices and party support in traditional agrarian societies, characterized by low levels of education and minimal access to the news media. To explore these issues, this study seeks to analyze the influence of ethno-linguistic and ethno-racial characteristics on identification with the governing party in a dozen African states, compared with other structural and attitudinal factors commonly used to explain patterns of partisanship in many countries. The study draws upon the first wave of the Afrobarometer, a cross-national representative survey of political and social values conducted in 1999-2001 in twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Botswana to Zimbabwe. We establish three main findings. (i) Even with social and attitudinal controls, ethnicity is a significant predictor of party support in most, although not all, African societies under comparison. (ii) Yet the strength of this association varies cross-nationally, with the linkages strongest in societies divided by many languages, such as Namibia and South Africa, while playing an insignificant role in African countries where ethno-linguistic cleavages are more homogeneous, including Lesotho and Botswana. (iii) Moreover structural explanations are limited: evaluations of the policy performance of the party in government also influenced patterns of party support, even with prior social controls. The conclusion summarises the results and considers their broader implications for understanding the role of ethnic cleavages in elections within plural societies. One classic issue in electoral behaviour concerns the relative strength of social cleavages and political issues in structuring voter choice and party identification. Following the seminal structural theories of Lipset and Rokkan (1967), much of this literature has focused upon the cleavages of social class, religion, and centre-periphery that have long divided established democracies. Debate has centred on whether the strength of these social cues on electoral behaviour have weakened in post-industrial societies during recent decades, with commentators emphasising the process of partisan de-alignment and the rise of issue voting among more cognitively-skilled citizens (Dalton, Flanagan and Beck, 1984; 2 Crewe and Denver, 1985; Franklin et al, 1992; Evans, 1999; Norris, 2003)