Intermarriage and Voting in Africa

UCL Uncovering Politics · Jan 20, 2022 · 27m

Ethnic voting means voting on the basis of ethnic identity, rather than, say, policy preferences or how well or badly you think the incumbents have governed.

Ethnic and other forms of communal voting are found in many parts of the world – think, for example, of very different voting patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. But ethnic voting is often thought particularly to be a feature of politics in many African countries.

And such voting is also often seen as rather problematic for healthy democracy, because it can shield those in power from accountability if they…