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Competing cleavages in sub-Saharan Africa?: How economic distance affects ethnic bloc politics

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  • Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz

Abstract

Does economic standing cross-cut ethnicity in African electoral politics? In many countries in the region, ethnicity appears to be a major consideration in individuals' political decision-making. However, there is significant variation in the extent to which coethnics support parties en bloc; while some ethnic groups exhibit high rates of similarity in terms of members' preferred parties, others are more fractionalized. One factor that might affect the probability that an individual will support the plurality-choice party of his or her ethnic group is relative economic standing.

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  • Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz, 2016. "Competing cleavages in sub-Saharan Africa?: How economic distance affects ethnic bloc politics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2016-104
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    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2016-104.pdf
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    Equality and inequality; Voting;

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