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Economic signals of ethnicity and voting in Africa: analysis of the correlation between agricultural subsectors and ethnicity in Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Eun Kyung Kim
Eun Kyung Kim*
Affiliation:
81, Oedae-ro, Mohyeon-eup, Cheoin-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, 17035, KoreaHankuk University of Foreign Studies
*
Email: liprib612@gmail.com
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Abstract

The existing literature has demonstrated that both ethnic and economic factors affect a vote decision in African democracies. I show that there is a meaningful interaction between the two cleavages in their influence on voting. In particular, I argue for political salience of agricultural subsectors that shape the electoral consequences of economic performance in the context where agricultural policy affects the livelihood of the majority population. Relying on the analyses of the 2007 and 2013 elections in Kenya, I illustrate how likely an individual, who is attached to a politically coherent ethnic group, votes for a candidate, the majority of whose ethnic members engage in the same industry as the voter himself regardless of the candidate's ethnicity. The results show that the sector factor reinforces the positive and negative effects of ethnic communities on incumbent support, and also explains voting by ethnic minorities whose motives for voting are not ethnic.

Keywords

Economic votingethnic votingagricultural sectorcropssugarcaneteacoffeeKenya.
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 361 - 395
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

I am grateful for comments and suggestions received from the participants in the Kenyan political studies panel in the 2017 Association of African Studies Annual Meeting, and anonymous referees. The research is supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund and the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean government (NRF-362-2010-1-B00003).

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