Everyday identity and electoral politics : race, ethnicity, and the bloc vote in South Africa and beyond / Adam S. Harris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harris, Adam S., author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political participation--Social aspects--South Africa.

Political participation.

Identity politics--South Africa.

Identity politics.

Voting--Social aspects--South Africa.

Voting.

Ethnicity--Political aspects--South Africa.

Ethnicity.

Race--Political aspects--South Africa.

Race.

Group identity--Political aspects--South Africa.

Group identity.

Ethnicity--Political aspects.

Group identity--Political aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022]

Summary:

While ethnic identities are found to play a key role in politics, not all members of a group toe their group's line and vote for its affiliated party. Why do some voters choose not to vote with their group when doing so can often be advantageous given the norms of ethnic favoritism observed across Africa? According to Afrobarometer data, between 30% and 52% of voters in sub-Saharan Africa do not vote for their ethnic group's party. This book argues that as individuals are less readily identified as members of their ethnic group, they are less likely to be treated as if they are members of that group, which in turn weakens their identification with the group.

Contents:

Cover

Everyday Identity and Electoral Politics

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

1.1 The Sociological Attachment Argument

1.2 Definitions

1.2.1 Ethnicity

1.2.2 Ethnic Attributes and Their Perceivable Manifestations

1.2.3 Ethnic Distance

1.2.4 Ethnically Charged and Ethnic Census Elections

1.2.5 Swing Voters

1.3 Methodology and Data

1.4 Why Coloured South Africans?

1.4.1 South Africa

1.4.2 The Coloured Community

1.5 The Plan of the Book

2. A Theory of Sociological Attachment

2.1 Sociological Attachment and Vote Choice

2.1.1 Identity Construction through Social Treatment

2.1.2 Implications of Identity Construction for Voting Behavior

2.2 Scope Conditions

2.2.1 Perceivable and Sticky Attributes

2.2.2 A Minimal Degree of Agreement Regarding the Mode/​Prototype

2.2.3 Group Preferences

2.2.4 Group Solidarity

2.2.5 The Role of Political Parties

2.2.6 What the Theory Does and Does Not Explain

2.3 The Sources of Mis-​categorization (a Theoretical Expansion)

2.4 The Endogeneity of Treatment, Identity, and Vote Choice

2.5 The Role of Cross-​Cutting and Multiple Ethnic Cleavages

2.6 Conclusion

3. What Is Ethnic Distance?

3.1 Defining Ethnic Distance

3.2 Advantages of the Ethnic Distance Approach

3.3 Key Limitations of Ethnic Distance

3.3.1 It Is Not Universally Applicable to All Ethnic Identities

3.3.2 Complexity

3.4 Is Ethnic Distance Exogenous?

3.5 Conclusion

4. The South African Case

4.1 Why South Africa and the Coloured Community?

4.2 The Primacy of Race in South African Society and Politics

4.3 The Ethnic Landscape of South Africa

4.4 Ethnic Group Membership Rules

4.5 Coloured Identity

4.5.1 The Historical Construction of Coloured Identity.

4.5.2 Consequences of Coloured Identity Construction

4.6 The South African Electoral Context

4.6.1 The Mapping of Ethnicity and Political Parties

4.6.2 National and Provincial Election Results

4.7 A Brief History of Coloured Political Participation

4.7.1 The 1994 Elections

4.7.2 The 1999 Elections

4.7.3 The 2004 Elections

4.7.4 The 2009 Elections

4.8 Conclusion

5. Study Design and Empirical Ethnic Distance Measure

5.1 The Empirical Strategy

5.1.1 The Panel Survey

5.1.2 The 2014 Election Campaigns

5.1.3 Survey Experiment

5.2 Racial Distance Measures

5.2.1 The Ethics of Measuring Skin Tone

5.2.2 Is Racial Distance Exogenous to Vote Choice?

5.2.3 Validating the Racial Distance Measure

5.2.4 Limitations of the Measure

5.3 Conclusion

6. The Empirical Relationship between Ethnic Distance and Voter Behavior

6.1 Making Inferences

6.2 The Effect of Racial Distance on Vote Choice and Change

6.2.1 Racial Distance and Vote Choice

6.2.2 Vote Choice Analysis Using Official Election Results Data

6.2.3 Racial Distance and Vote Change

6.2.4 Summary of Vote Choice and Change Analysis

6.2.5 Assigned and Chosen Identities

6.3 Robustness Tests

6.3.1 Local Variation in Distance, Preferences, and Diversity

6.3.2 A Nonlinear Relationship?

6.4 The Social Treatment Mechanism

6.5 Testing Alternative Mechanisms

6.5.1 Competing Ethnic Mechanisms

6.5.2 Non-​ethnic Alternatives to the Social Treatment Mechanism

6.6 Conclusion

7. Beyond South Africa

7.1 Generalizing the South African Coloured Case

7.2 Case Selection

7.3 Racial Distance in Broader South Africa and the United States

7.4 Application to Uganda

7.4.1 Measuring Linguistic Proximity

7.4.2 Dependent Variables

7.4.3 Analysis and Results

7.5 Conclusion

8. Conclusion.

8.1 Key Implications of the Study

8.1.1 The Contributions of the Sociological Attachment and Ethnic Distance Approach

8.1.2 Measuring Ethnic Attributes and Challenging Ethnic Reductionism

8.1.3 The Ethnic Distance Measure: Flexible and Adaptable

8.2 Implications for South African Politics

8.2.1 Lessons from the 2014 and 2016 Elections and Implications for the Future

8.2.2 The 2019 National Elections, the Coloured Vote, and Ethnic Distance

8.3 The Ethnic Distance Research Agenda

Appendices

Appendix A: Full and Additional Analysis for Chapters 5 and 6

A.1 Survey Response Rates

A.2 Summary Statistics

A.3 Preference Index Measures

A.4 Vote Choice Analysis

A.5 Vote Change Analysis

A.6 Chosen and Assigned Identities Analysis

A.7 Robustness to Ward Fixed Effects

Appendix B: Full and Additional Results for Chapter 7

B.1 Skin Tone Distributions

B.2 Full Regression Tables

B.3 Details of Measuring Ethnic Distance in Uganda

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on April 11, 2022).

Also issued in print: 2022.

Other Format:

Print version: Harris, Adam S. Everyday Identity and Electoral Politics

ISBN:

0-19-763823-6

0-19-763821-X

0-19-763822-8