Ethnic fractionalisation, electoral institutions, and African's political attitudes

A comparative series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, markets and civil society in Africa

By: Cho, W
Published by: Afrobarometer, 2007
Via: Eldis

This paper explores the effects of ethnic fractionalisation on regime evaluations, and the interaction of these effects with the type of electoral system in place. The author uses Afrobarometer survey data from 15 sub-Saharan African countries and demonstrates that electoral systems have differential effects on citizens’ attitudes on regime performance in various social contexts. The author discusses a number of findings. These include:

• ethnic fractionalisation is negatively associated with ordinary Africans’ attitudes toward their political systems
• electoral systems are likely to interact with the negative effects of ethnic diversity on citizen evaluations for regime performance
• at lower levels of ethnic fractionalisation, majoritarian electoral system are better for boosting public support for a regime

In terms of public policy, the implication is that there may be a significant benefit to the process of democratisation if one can design political institutions which generate higher levels of support for regimes in a given social context.

(http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfropaperNo66.pdf)