Measuring Support for Multiethnic Parties in Zambia

Ethnicity plays a huge role in elections, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The research on ethnic diversity or fractionalization thus far has addressed cross-country studies, examining why ethnicity plays such a huge role in national elections. This paper seeks to explain the role of ethnicity in elections held at smaller administrative units. I employ a multilevel logit regression model to test whether ethnic affiliations that hold at the individual level still remain strong at the constituency or provincial level. I find no evidence that constituency-level ethnic fractionalization affects an individual’s support for multiethnic party, but find mixed results for provincial-level linguistic fractionalization. In particular, there is little mobilization around the Bemba language, while the strength of mobilization around Tonga and Lozi languages rises