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"While ethnic identities are found to play a key role in politics, not all members of a group toe their group's line and vote for its affiliated party. Why do some voters choose not to vote with their group when doing so can often be advantageous given the norms of ethnic favoritism observed across Africa? According to Afrobarometer data, between 30-52% of voters in Sub-Saharan Africa do not vote for their ethnic groups' party. This book argues that as individuals are less readily identified as members of their ethnic group, they are less likely to be treated as if they are members of that group, which in turn weakens their identification with the group. Individuals who weakly identify with their group are less likely to be influenced by their identity when voting. This approach makes this book the first study to theorize and empirically test the effects of the everyday identity construction process on ethnic salience and in turn on vote choice. To test the theory, the book develops the concept of ethnic distance and measures it empirically. Empirical tests find support for the argument in South Africa, Uganda, and the United States. These cases allow me to test the effect of ethnic distance on several different ethnic dimensions (race, language, and region) in a variety of contexts. As a first step toward matching our scholarly concepts of ethnicity to its complexity in the real world, this study is poised to alter the way we think about ethnicity in politics"--

While ethnic identities are found to play a key role in politics, not all members of a group toe their group's line and vote for its affiliated party. Why do some voters choose not to vote with their group when doing so can often be advantageous given the norms of ethnic favoritism observed across Africa? According to Afrobarometer data, between 30% and 52% of voters in sub-Saharan Africa do not vote for their ethnic group's party. This book argues that as individuals are less readily identified as members of their ethnic group, they are less likely to be treated as if they are members of that group, which in turn weakens their identification with the group.

AbstractWhy are some voters less likely to align with their group when group-based voting is both the norm and advantageous? I argue that the answer to this question can be found in the extent to which individuals are apparently consistent with the prototypical individual in their group. I develop a concept of racial distance, which improves upon the in-group out-group focus of the race and ethnic politics literature. Empirically, I investigate this relationship in South Africa using an original panel survey, which brackets the 2014 national elections. I find that those who are not readily identified as members of their group are less likely to vote with their group and more likely to change their vote due to an election campaign. Analyzing data from the South Africa 2016 the US 2012 elections suggests that this relationship holds for racial majorities but only minorities with a relatively weak sense of solidarity.

Ethnicity is frequently posited as an important factor in civil violence and other political contexts. Despite the attention that ethnicity receives, its effects depend on an important, but mostly ignored, assumption that ethnicity is identifiable within and across groups. There is likely considerable variation in peoples' abilities to identify each other. Certain individuals within groups might be better at identifying others' ethnicities; further, different types of information might aid identification better. We contend that the strength of an individual's ethnic identity influences her ability to identify others correctly. We test this argument using an experiment in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in which individuals attempted to identify members of the major black ethnic groups. We find that the average individual struggles to identify ethnicity correctly in many conditions. Individuals with a stronger identity, however, are often better at correctly identifying the ethnicity of others relative to the average individual. When receiving contradictory information, individuals with stronger identities were sometimes deceived more easily than others. These results have implications for a diverse set of studies relying on the identifiability assumption. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Ethnicity is frequently posited as an important factor in civil violence and other political contexts. Despite the attention that ethnicity receives, its effects depend on an important, but mostly ignored, assumption that ethnicity is identifiable within and across groups. There is likely considerable variation in peoples' abilities to identify each other. Certain individuals within groups might be better at identifying others' ethnicities; further, different types of information might aid identification better. We contend that the strength of an individual's ethnic identity influences her ability to identify others correctly. We test this argument using an experiment in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in which individuals attempted to identify members of the major black ethnic groups. We find that the average individual struggles to identify ethnicity correctly in many conditions. Individuals with a stronger identity, however, are often better at correctly identifying the ethnicity of others relative to the average individual. When receiving contradictory information, individuals with stronger identities were sometimes deceived more easily than others. These results have implications for a diverse set of studies relying on the identifiability assumption.

Intermarriage is transforming Africa's ethnic landscape. In several countries on the continent more than a fifth of all marriages now cut across ethnic lines. As a result, there is a growing population of multiethnic citizens who descend from diverse family lineages. The growth of Africa's mixed population has the potential to affect politics in a variety of potentially far-reaching ways. In this article, we focus on one possible implication by examining the electoral preferences of multiethnic voters in contexts where ethnic bloc voting is commonplace. Drawing on survey data from Malawi and Kenya, we find that mixed individuals are less likely to support the party associated with their stated ethnic group, relative to mono-ethnics. We outline several possible explanations related to identity measurement, the link between identities and preferences, and social networks.

Abstract
Public service delivery by African states is often characterized as particularist, favoring ethnic, personal or political networks of those inside the state over universalist, pro-social services to citizens. One explanation for particularist service delivery focuses on societal patronage norms, with "Big Men" providing for members of their networks. Despite the prominence of this line of reasoning and the anecdotal prevalence of "Big Men" in politics and society, hardly any research has quantitatively assessed the effects of "big man" governance inside the state. Through a behavioral experiment with over 1,300 Ugandan bureaucrats, our article seeks to address this gap. In the experiment, we find that activating social status—that is, "big man" status—in bureaucrats embedded in patronage networks significantly curbs their pro-social behavior. Our article contributes an important empirical micro-foundation to help explain one cause of limited universal service delivery by bureaucrats.

Most research in developed countries on prejudice toward foreign-born minorities suggests that cultural rather than economic threat motivates xenophobia. Prior studies leave unanswered questions about the origins of anti-immigrant prejudice in developing countries, where one-third of worldwide immigration occurs. Alternatively, developing-country research simply assumes that economic threat drives prejudice in the global South but has not presented credible empirical evidence. In this study, we seek to reliably measure anti-immigrant prejudice and examine possible determinants of prejudice and prejudice-based voting behavior. Through a list experiment conducted on a random sample of South Africans ( N = 1,088), we investigate the predictive power of economic threat theory in explaining prejudice toward immigrants in South Africa. The results show that significant prejudice toward immigrants exists among South Africans and that such prejudice is higher among the unemployed, but these sentiments do not seem to influence vote choice. The evidence suggests that the determinants of anti-immigrant sentiments due to South-South migration are distinct from South-North migration.