Settlement Patterns and Electoral Mobilization : How Geography and the Electoral System Shape the Fate of Ethnic Parties in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study analyzes the emergence and electoral success of ethnic parties in Sub-Saharan Africa. It presents three main innovations compared to previous studies on the topic. First, we rely on a new spatial dataset on the ethnic electoral geography at the district level. Second, we complement the common country-level approach with more fine-grained district- and group-level analyses. And third, using new time-variant data on ethnic parties in the region, we are able to move from purely cross-sectional to time-series-cross-section analyses. At all levels of analysis - country-, group-, and district-level - we find consistent evidence for a link between ethnically homogenous electoral districts and the emergence of strong ethnic parties. At the same time, PR systems are associated with more and stronger ethnic parties than their majoritarian counterparts