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1. Introduction -- 2. The Ethnic Foundations of Electoral Politics in Kenya -- 3. Ethnicity and the Swing Vote -- 4. Campaign Strategy: Appealing to a Diverse Electorate -- 5. Persuasion on the Campaign Trail -- 6. From Electoral Politics to Policymaking: Education Reform in Kenya -- 7. Electoral Competition and Policymaking in Ghana -- 8. Conclusion

Who are Africa's swing voters? This article argues that in settings where ethnicity is politically salient, core and swing are defined by whether ethnic groups have a co-ethnic leader in the election. For members of ethnic groups with a co-ethnic in the race, there is typically less uncertainty about which party or candidate will best represent the group's interests. For members of groups without a co-ethnic in the race, uncertainty is often greater, making these voters potentially more receptive to campaign persuasion and more likely to change voting intentions during the campaign. Consistent with these expectations, panel data from Kenya's 2013 presidential election shows that voters from groups without a co-ethnic in the race were more than two and a half times more likely to change their voting intentions during the campaign period.

Much of the existing ethnic politics literature suggests that in settings where ethnicity is politically salient, electoral competition encourages rival parties to focus narrowly on mobilizing their respective core ethnic constituents, a strategy that exacerbates ethnic divisions and may heighten the risk of conflict. This article develops an alternative account of campaign strategy that proposes that in highly diverse societies, an exclusive focus on core mobilization is likely to be an unattractive strategy. It argues that campaigns will be animated principally by the pursuit of swing voters outside of core strongholds, while the mobilization of core ethnic supporters will be delegated to lower level actors. To support these propositions, the article draws on data collected during Kenya's 2007 presidential election.

This dissertation examines the polarizing effects of electoral competition in Kenya's multiethnic democracy. I argue that polarization results from a combination of the messages parties use to demonize opponents and the tendency by voters to accept more readily messages from co -ethnic leaders. The argument starts with an investigation of campaign targeting decisions. I show, contrary to much of the existing ethnic politics literature, that in Kenya the competition for swing groups (ethnic communities that do not have a co-ethnic leader in the presidential race) is at the heart of electoral contests. The need to attract support across group lines drives message development, leading parties to craft appeals that communicate their inclusive intentions while relying on negative ethnic messages to vilify opponents as ethnic chauvinists. I argue that because of the strong association between ethnicity and trust, voters in the ethnic communities associated with the leading parties internalize messages offered by distinct sets of political elites during campaigns. The result is that negative ethnic appeals exacerbate divisions across communities during the race. To develop and test these claims, I draw on a wide range of empirical evidence collected from Kenya's four multiparty races since the reintroduction of competitive presidential elections in 1991

Federal judges are constrained by their need to maintain legitimacy. To this end, numerous formal and informal institutions structure how they perform their duties. Obeying these generally applicable rules allows judges to demonstrate fealty to a higher principle operating above the concerns of partisan politics. This dissertation examines how judges work within this system to pursue their preferences, sometimes using judicial tools to circumvent the constraints and sometimes using the constraints themselves to advance their goals. The first two essays examine the use of dissents from denial of rehearing en banc (DDRs) in the federal courts of appeals. DDRs are voluntary, published, non-precedential opinions criticizing the circuit court for choosing not to rehear a case. The first chapter uses an original dataset of every DDR from the courts of appeals from 1969 to 2012 (nearly 1000 cases) to test the impact of a DDR author's ideology on the signal of cert-worthiness it provides to litigants and the Supreme Court. I find that litigants treat a DDR as a strong signal they should seek certiorari regardless of its author's ideology, but the Supreme Court has been much more inclined to grant certiorari when the DDR author is ideologically conservative. The second chapter assesses political polarization in the courts of appeals by looking at DDR coalition data from 1943 to 2012 (nearly 1300 DDRs). I find that many circuits use DDRs in a polarized fashion, the polarization increased markedly in the 1980s, and the polarization is largely attributable to appointing presidents. The third chapter examines how Supreme Court justices use the institutional requirement that they support their decisions through the citation of relevant precedent to enhance the Court's legitimacy. Using Fowler et al.'s (2007) measure of precedent centrality I test the hypothesis that the Court cites more authoritative precedent in cases that might cause the public to question its legitimacy. The data indicate that in these situations -- departures from governing case law, actions particularly salient to the public, and direct challenges to the actions of the coordinate branches -- the Court's decisions cite more authoritative case law to support its holdings

Ethnic pandering, in which candidates promise to cater to the interests of coethnic voters, is presumed to be an effective strategy for increasing electoral support in Africa's emerging multiethnic democracies. However, ethnic political mobilization may be disdained by citizens for its divisive and polarizing effects, particularly in urban areas. As a result, pandering may fall on deaf ears among Africa's urban voters. This study examines how voters in Kenya's capital city, Nairobi, respond to ethnic pandering using data from a vignette experiment conducted in 2015 and a replication study implemented in 2016. Results show that respondents are more supportive of candidates who make ethnically inclusive rather than targeted appeals, regardless of whether the candidate is identified as a coethnic. We propose that the results are driven by a broad distaste among urban voters for parochial politics, rather than by strategic calculations related to candidate viability.