2020/11/11 by Elliott Green · 22 citations
Social Sciences · #Autocracy #China #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Democracy #Demographic economics #Development economics #Economics #Ethnic group #Gender studies #Identity (music) #Incentive #International Development and Aid #Law #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Presidential system #Sociology
paper · open access · doi:10.1177/0010414020970223
published in Comparative Political Studies 54(7), 1197-1226 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2020/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Recent literature suggests that African Presidents tend to target co-ethnics with patronage, especially in non-democracies. Coupled with evidence on the role of incentives in driving ethnic identity change, I propose that a change in the ethnic identity of the President should lead to an increase in the proportion of people identifying with the President’s ethnic group. I use survey data from fourteen African countries with Presidential transitions to show that ethnic Presidential change leads to an upwards shift in the percentage of respondents identifying with the new ruling ethnic group in non-democracies, and that this shift increases with the level of autocracy. I also show that countries where citizens perceive more ethnic favoritism see higher levels of ethnic switching. Within-survey evidence from Zambia demonstrates that this shift is immediate, and case study evidence from early modern China suggests that this phenomenon is not limited to Sub-Saharan Africa.