Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa

Presenting a theory to explain how politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another, Daniel Posner examines Zambia, where people identify themselves either as members of one of the country's seventy-three tribes or as members of one of its four principal language groups. Drawing on a simple model of identity choice, Posner demonstrates that the answer depends on whether the country is operating under single-party or multi-party rule, thus revealing how formal institutional rules determine the social cleavages that matter.

This book presents a theory to account for why and when politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another. It does so by examining the case of Zambia, where people identify themselves either as members of one of the country's seventy-three tribes or as members of one of its four principal language groups. The book accounts for the conditions under which Zambian political competition revolves around tribal differences and under which it revolves around language group differences. Drawing on a simple model of identity choice, it shows that the answer depends on whether the country operates under single-party or multi-party rule. During periods of single-party rule, tribal identities serve as the axis of electoral mobilization and self-identification; during periods of multi-party rule, broader language group identities play this role. The book thus demonstrates how formal institutional rules determine the kinds of social cleavages that matter in politics.

1. Introduction: institutions and ethnic politics; Part I. Accounting for the Ethnic Cleavage Structure: 2. Accounting for Zambia's ethnic cleavage structure I: the emergence of tribal identities in colonial Northern Rhodesia; 3. Accounting for Zambia's ethnic cleavage structure II: the emergence of language identities in colonial Northern Rhodesia; Part II. Accounting for Ethnic Coalition-Building Choices: 4. Ethnicity and ethnic politics in post-independence Zambia; 5. Explaining changing patterns of ethnic politics; Part III. Testing the Model: 6. Competing explanations; 7. Ethnic campaigning: testing the observable implications of the model for elite behavior; 8. Ethnic voting: testing the observable implications of the model for mass behavior; Part IV. Beyond Zambia: 9. Regime change and ethnic politics in Africa; 10. Beyond regime change, beyond Africa; Appendix A. Native authorities and tribal identifications; Appendix B. Survey and focus group methodologies; Appendix C. Tribal affiliations of parliamentary candidates; Appendix D. Tribal demographies of electoral constituencies.

By examining the case of Zambia, this book accounts for why and when politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another. Drawing on a simple model of identity choice, it shows that the answer depends on whether the country is operating under single-party or multi-party rule.

Daniel N. Posner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCLA. His research focuses on ethnic politics, regime change, and the political economy of development in Africa. He has published articles in numerous journals including the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, and the British Journal of Political Science. He has received grants or fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He has been a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and is currently a Carnegie Scholar of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.