Political scientists' explanations for ethnic voting differ. Some have argued that the utility of ethnicity lies partly in the information that demographic cues provide about candidates, particularly in information-poor societies. However, extant research has not tested this proposition directly. This article proposes that, if part of ethnicity's utility is informational, we should expect that voters' reliance on ethnic cues will decline when certain types of higher-quality information are available. To test this, a survey experiment was conducted in Uganda, with subjects evaluating candidates under varying informational environments. While support for co-ethnics was high when ethnicity was the only distinguishing fact about candidates, it declined when information was presented that portrayed co-ethnics negatively vis-a`-vis non co-ethnics. These results suggest that informational environments can impact ethnic voting.
In February 2011, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni resoundingly won re-election. In the aftermath of the vote, which many had predicted would be competitive, analysts and opposition supporters ascribed Museveni's victory to massive pre-election spending on public goods, creation of new administrative districts, and vote buying. While the opposition could not compete with Museveni and his National Resistance Movement in access to resources, our analyses of survey data, from two pre-election surveys conducted by Afrobarometer in November/December 2010 and January 2011, and a pre- and post-election panel study, find little evidence that Museveni benefited significantly from public goods outlays, district creation, and vote buying. Additionally, we find little evidence that fear and intimidation were responsible for the results. Instead, the data suggest that Museveni's re-election was driven by an uninspiring opposition slate, widespread satisfaction with macro-economic growth, and an improved security situation, particularly in the Northern Region.
There are numerous studies of the effects of partisan cues in developed democracies, but almost none on how they affect voting in new multiparty systems. This lacuna might stem from untested assumptions that partisan cues are un-influential where parties lack longstanding records as governors, ideological cores, and psychological bonds with citizens. Alternatively, we theorize that even in new multiparty systems, voters use partisan cues to assess candidates' potential performance, resource distribution, democratic credentials, and electoral viability. We test this theory through an experiment in which we varied inclusion of party identifiers on ballots in Uganda, where the multiparty system was only five years old. We find that partisan cues increased selection of major-party candidates over independents, straight-ticket ballots, and votes for copartisans. Our results challenge the common assumption that partisan affiliation is irrelevant to voters in new party systems. Partisan cues can influence political decision-making, even when party-systems are young.
/Faculty-Bio.aspx?idp177. 2. Our focus is on media effects not choice, though we discuss later why selective exposure (another consequence of motivated reasoning) is likely less common postliberalization.
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