¹ Glickman, Harvey, ed., Ethnic Conflict and Democratization (Atlanta, Ga.: The African Studies Association, 1995), 161–196Google Scholar

Kimenyi, Mwangi S., Ethnic Diversity, Liberty and the State: The African Dilemma (Cheltenham, Glos.: Edward Elgar, 1997)Google Scholar

David Throup, and Charles Hornsby Multi-Party Politics in Kenya (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998)Google Scholar

Orvis, Stephen, ‘Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism in Kenya's “Virtual Democracy” ’, African Issues, 29 (2001), 8–13Google Scholar

Bratton, Michael and Kimenyi, Mwangi S., ‘Voting in Kenya: Putting Ethnicity Into Perspective’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2 (2008), 272–289CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Horowitz, Donald, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 319–324Google Scholar

³ Posner, Daniel N. and Simon, David J., ‘Economic Conditions and Incumbent Support in Africa's New Democracies: Evidence from Zambia’, Comparative Political Studies, 35 (2002), 313–336CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Norris, Pippa and Mattes, Robert, ‘Does Ethnicity Determine Support for the Governing Party?’ (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 26, 2003)Google Scholar

Lindberg, Staffan I. and Morrison, Minion K. C., ‘Are African Voters Really Ethnic or Clientelistic? Survey Evidence From Ghana’, Political Science Quarterly, 122 (2008), 95–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cheeseman, Nicholas and Ford, Rob, ‘Ethnicity as a Political Cleavage’ (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 83, 2007)Google Scholar

Eifert, Benn, Miguel, Edward and Posner, Daniel N., ‘Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa’, American Journal of Political Science, 54 (2010), 494–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Keefer, Philip, ‘The Ethnicity Distraction? Political Credibility and Partisan Preferences in Africa’ (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 118, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Tajfel, Henri, ‘Social Identity and Inter-Group Behavior’, Social Science Information, 13 (1974), 65–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Cohen, Abner, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Rabushka, Alvin and Shepsle, Kenneth, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1972)Google Scholar

Rothchild, Donald and Olorunsola, Victor A., eds, State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), 152–171Google Scholar

Kasfir, Nelson, ‘Explaining Ethnic Political Participation’, World Politics, 31 (1979), 365–388CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ Brady, Henry and Sniderman, Paul, ‘Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning’, American Political Science Review, 79 (1985), 1061–1078CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Sniderman, Paul, Brody, Richard and Tetlock, Philip, Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Popkin, Samuel L., The Reasoning Voter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 63–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Mattes, Robert, The Election Book: Judgment and Choice in South Africa's 1994 Elections (Cape Town: Idasa, 1995)Google Scholar

Posner, Daniel N., Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Ferree, Karen E., Framing the Race in South Africa: The Political Origins of Racial Census Elections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)Google Scholar

⁸ Chandra, Kanchan, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Birnir, Jóhanna Kristín, Ethnicity and Electoral Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar

¹⁰ Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed, pp. 37–42Google Scholar

Habyarimana, James, Humphreys, Macartan, Posner, Daniel N. and Weinstein, Jeremy M., Coethnicity: Diversity and Dilemmas of Collective Action (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), pp. 48–57Google Scholar

¹¹ Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa, p. 153Google Scholar

¹² Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed.

¹³ Birnir, Ethnicity and Electoral Politics, pp. 28–37Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ferree, Framing the Race in South Africa.

¹⁵ Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957), pp. 222–223Google Scholar

Tversky, Amos and Kahneman, Daniel, ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, Science, 185 (1974), 1124–1131CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

¹⁶ Campbell, Angus, Converse, Phillip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960)Google Scholar

Shively, W. Phillips, ‘The Development of Party Identification among Adults: Explorations of a Functional Model’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 1039–1058CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Lau, Richard R. and Sears, David O., eds, Political Cognition (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1980), 127–158Google Scholar

¹⁷ Calvert, Randall L., Models of Imperfect Information in Politics (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1986)Google Scholar

Hinich, Melvin J. and Munger, Michael C., Ideology and the Theory of Political Choice (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)Google Scholar

¹⁸ Katz, Elihu and Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1955)Google Scholar

Calvert, Randall L., ‘Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model: Candidate Motivations, Uncertainty and Convergence’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 69–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Grofman, Bernard and Norrander, Barbara, ‘Efficient Use of Reference Group Cues in a Single Dimension’, Public Choice, 64 (1990), 213–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Popkin, The Reasoning Voter, pp. 63–64Google Scholar

Sapiro, Virginia, ‘If U.S. Senator Baker Were a Woman: An Experimental Study of Candidate Images’, Political Psychology, 3 (1983), 671–683Google Scholar

Bittner, Amanda, ‘The Effects of Information and Social Cleavages: Explaining Issue Attitudes and Vote Choice in Canada’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 40 (2007), 935–968CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ Kaspin, Deborah, ‘The Politics of Ethnicity in Malawi's Democratic Transition’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 33 (1995), 595–620CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Burnell, Peter, ‘The Party System and Party Politics in Zambia: Continuities Past, Present and Future’, African Affairs, 100 (2001), 239–264CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Amanda Di Lorenzo and Enrico Sborgi, ‘The 1999 Presidential and Legislative Elections in Niger’, Electoral Studies, 20 (2001), 463–501Google Scholar

Lindberg, Staffan I., ‘It's Our Time to “Chop”: Do Elections in Africa Feed Neo-Patrimonialism Rather Than Counteract it?’ Democratization, 10 (2003), 121–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Nugent, Paul, ‘Winners, Losers and Also-Rans: Money, Moral Authority and Voting Patterns in the Ghana 2000 Elections’, African Affairs, 100 (2001), 405–428CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Carbone, Giovanni, No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008), p. 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ Nicolas van de Walle, ‘Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa's Emerging Party Systems’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 41 (2003), 297–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey and Lewis, Dominique, ‘Mapping Ideologies in African Landscapes’ (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 129, 2011)Google Scholar

²² Chandra, Kanchan, ‘What is Ethnic Identity and Does it Matter?’ Annual Review of Political Science, 9 (2006), 397–424CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ See Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed.

²⁴ Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962)Google Scholar

²⁵ James D. Fearon, ‘Why Ethnic Politics and “Pork” Tend to Go Together’ (paper presented at the SSRC-Macarthur-sponsored conference on ‘Ethnic Politics and Democratic Stability’, University of Chicago, 1999); Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa.

²⁶ Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed, pp. 86–90Google Scholar

Posner, Daniel N., ‘The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi’, American Political Science Review, 98 (2004), 529–545CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ Lau, Richard R. and Redlawsk, David P., How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Electoral Campaigns (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Lindbeck, Assar and Weibull, Jorgen, ‘Balanced Budget Redistribution as the Outcome of Political Competition’, Public Choice, 52 (1987), 273–297CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Dixit, Avinash and Londregan, John, ‘The Determinants of Success of Special Interests in Redistributive Politics’, Journal of Politics, 58 (1996), 1132–1155CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Dahlberg, Matz and Johansson, Eva, ‘On the Vote-Purchasing Behavior of Incumbent Governments’, American Political Science Review, 96 (2002), 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Kasara, Kimuli, ‘Tax Me if You Can: Ethnic Geography, Democracy, and the Taxation of Agriculture in Africa’, American Political Science Review, 101 (2007), 159–172CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed, pp. 86–90Google Scholar

³⁰ Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa.

³¹ Carpini, Michael X. Delli and Keeter, Scott, What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997)Google Scholar

³² However, in the Central Region of the country, which contains the capital and is where both research sites were located, the Baganda are demographically and politically dominant.

³³ The Buganda kingdom was the largest pre-colonial entity incorporated into the British protectorate. The authority of the kabaka and the Buganda Parliament (Lukiiko) have fluctuated in the post-independence period. In 1966, Mutesa II fled into exile when a constitutional crisis with then-President Milton Obote turned violent. In 1993, President Yoweri Museveni reinstated the Buganda monarchy constitutionally and allowed the kabaka to return. Since then, Museveni has often found the kabaka to be an irritating, competing source of authority.

³⁴ Kasfir, Nelson, The Shrinking Political Arena: Participation and Ethnicity in African Politics, with a Case Study of Uganda (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Carbone, No-Party Democracy?

³⁶ Awong, Barbara and Kiwuuwa, Paul, ‘Baganda hold most URA jobs’, New Vision (Kampala, 30 January 2008), p. 1Google Scholar

Mwenda, Andrew, ‘National Cake: Who Eats the Chunk, Who Picks the Crumbs?’ The Independent (Kampala, 8–21 February 2008), pp. 8–10Google Scholar

³⁷ Habyarimana, James, Humphreys, Macartan, Posner, Daniel N. and Weinstein, Jeremy M., ‘Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?’ American Political Science Review, 101 (2007), 709–725CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ Uganda is divided, in decreasing order of size, into local council (LC) 5s (districts), LC4s (counties), LC3s (sub-counties), LC2s (parishes), and LC1s (villages); local direct elections take place at LC1, LC3 and LC5 levels, and in municipalities (urban LC4s, outside of Kampala). In some urban areas, LC3s are known as divisions, and LC2s as wards.

³⁹ Lee Sigelman and Carol G.Sigelman, ‘Sexism, Racism, and Ageism in Voting Behaviour: An Experimental Analysis’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 45 (1982), 263–269CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Poole, Keith, Voting Hopes or Fears: White Voters, Black Candidates, and Racial Politics in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar

⁴⁰ These groups included Acholi, Alur, Baganda, Bakhonzo, Bakiga, Banyankole, Banyoro, Batoro, Langi and Lugbara. Each group had an equal chance of being selected; enumerators selected the group to be assigned by blindly drawing index cards from an envelope. Because of the limited size of the sample, it was not possible to test different matchups between specific groups (e.g., Banyankole vs. Bakiga, Banyoro vs. Langi).

⁴¹ For these non-partisans, elections involving the party treatment were skipped.

⁴² Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, pp. 319–320Google Scholar

Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa, pp. 229–332Google Scholar

⁴³ Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa.

⁴⁴ Magaloni, Beatriz, Voting For Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ Cox, Gary W., Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 122CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁶ Chabal, Patrick and Daloz, Jean-Pierre, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (London: James Currey, 1999)Google Scholar

Schatzberg, Michael, Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa: Family, Father, Food (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001)Google Scholar

⁴⁷ While presidential and parliamentary candidates are required by law to have advanced degrees, there are no educational requirements for LC3 chairs.

⁴⁸ Rwanda's density in 1990, before its genocide, was 277 people/km² (United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision. Online. 〈http://esa.un.org/unpp/〉).

⁴⁹ Ottaway, Marina, Africa's New Leaders: Democracy or State Reconstruction? (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999), p. 37Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Lindberg, ‘It's Our Time to “Chop” ’; L. Achien, ‘Presidential race of “Takrima” Polls’, Guardian (Dar es Salaam, 20 April 2005); Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), ‘A Vote for a Piece of Soap’ (19 June 2006); Lindberg and Morrison, ‘Are African Voters Really Ethnic or Clientelistic?’

⁵¹ Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey, ‘Political Information and Electoral Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 2009), pp. 171–181Google Scholar

⁵² Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works; Schatzberg, Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa.

⁵³ Kitschelt, Herbert and Wilkinson, Steven I., eds, Patrons, Clients and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 50–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ I exclude the Banyankole from the ‘micro group’ categorization, even though the group only comprises 2.7 per cent of the population in Bbaale (it comprises 6.4 per cent in Makindye), because it is coded elsewhere as a ‘powerful’ group, since one of its members is President Museveni.

⁵⁵ In Makindye, the only group large enough to meet this criterion was Baganda, while in Bbaale, Baganda and Basoga did.

⁵⁶ An age-squared term was included initially but dropped because of non-significance.

⁵⁷ Ordinal variables for radio, television and newspaper, with possible responses of accessing each never, less than once a month, a few times a month, several times a week, or every day.

⁵⁸ An ordinal variable, based on subjects’ highest level of education attained. Possible responses included no formal schooling; informal schooling only; some primary schooling; completed primary schooling; some secondary schooling; completed secondary schooling; certificate; diploma; some university; completed university; and post-university.

⁵⁹ This was measured by asking subjects whether their household has the following items: a radio, a television, a mobile phone, a bicycle, a motorcycle, and an automobile. A composite variable approximating total household wealth was created with these responses, with subjects living in households owning all the items rating a 6, and those owning none rating a 0, etc.

⁶⁰ Each LC2 was assigned an ethnic fractionalization score, which was obtained by subtracting its Herfindahl score from 1. In other words, FRACT_j = 1−Σ s_ij ² where j refers to the LC2, i to an ethnic group within the LC2 and s_ij to the share of each group within the LC2. Scores range from 0 to 1, with figures representing the probability that two randomly selected individuals from the LC2 will be members of different ethnic groups. Of those LC2s in which the experiment was conducted, the ELF scores ranged from 0.5037 (Lukuli) to 0.9281 (Nsambya Railway) in Makindye, and from 0.6928 (Kyerima) to 0.9051 (Kanywero) in Bbaale.

⁶¹ Lowest information vs. party ID (z = 23.4, p < 0.001), vs. crowd size (z = 21.9, p < 0.001), vs. corruption (z = 33.4, p < 0.001), vs. education (z = 33.1, p < 0.001), vs. forest-clearing position (z = 38.6, p < 0.001), vs. past performance (z = 37.8, p < 0.001).

⁶² Lowest information vs. party ID (z = 34.1, p < 0.001), vs. crowd size (z = 31.9, p < 0.001), vs. corruption (z = 69.1, p < 0.001), vs. education (z = 65.6, p < 0.001), vs. forest-clearing position (z = 97.7, p < 0.001), vs. past performance (z = 109.3, p < 0.001).

⁶³ An additional note regarding the party treatment is warranted because, as discussed previously, we should not conclude that defecting from a co-ethnic, non co-partisan to support a non co-ethnic, co-partisan necessarily represents a decrease in ethnic voting, at least as defined by Horowitz (Ethnic Groups in Conflict, pp. 319–20). Two parties widely seen as favouring certain ethnic groups with sizeable samples in this study are the DP (pro-Baganda) and NRM (pro-Banyankole). Of those twelve Baganda in the sample who were DP supporters, ten (83.3 per cent) supported a non co-ethnic, fellow DP supporter under the second condition, rather than the Muganda NRM candidate. Similarly, of the twenty Banyankole in the sample who were NRM partisans, seventeen (85.0 per cent) supported the non co-ethnic, NRM candidate, rather than the Munyankole FDC candidate. However, it is impossible to tell whether these Baganda and Banyankole subjects were supporting the DP and NRM, respectively, mainly due to ethnicity (i.e., still voting ethnically) or for other reasons related to party identity.

⁶⁴ Schaffer, Frederic Charles, ed., Elections for Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ I thank an anonymous reviewer for making this point.

⁶⁶ The small number of individuals (N = 17; Column B, Figure 3) who had supported a non co-ethnic and a distributor under baseline conditions tended to support the non co-ethnic distributor overwhelmingly (76.5 per cent).

⁶⁷ Barabas, Jason and Jerit, Jennifer, ‘Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid?’ American Political Science Review, 104 (2010), 226–242CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ An exception is for those subjects who opposed goods distribution.

⁶⁹ All other sources combined, including print and television, accounted for less than 1 per cent.

⁷⁰ Voice of Teso is owned by Captain Mike Mukula, who served as MP for Soroti Municipality between 2001 and 2006, and was re-elected in 2011. Mukula is a staunch NRM supporter, and his station was one of at least nine throughout the country that refused to air FDC advertisements for the 2011 presidential election (see Benon Herbert Oluka, ‘Nine radio stations decline Besigye ads’, Sunday Monitor (Kampala, 12 December 2010)).

⁷¹ The government temporarily closed Kyoga Veritas in 2003 for supposedly ‘seditious’ airings, while security agents allegedly operating on behalf of NRM candidate Mukula in 2006 reportedly ordered the station not to air election results (see Joseph Elunya, ‘Soroti Radio Station ordered to halt election reports’, Uganda Radio Network (23 February 2006). Online: http://ugandaradionetwork.com/a/story.php?s=3566)). After the 2011 elections, the station was accused of airings that harmed NRM candidates (see Simon Naulele, ‘Soroti Church radios sack journalists’, New Vision (Kampala, 7 March 2011)).

⁷² King, Gary, A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar

⁷³ The analysis assumes that votes were cast at polling stations at rates proportionate to each ethnic group's share of the LC2 population. This assumption, while potentially problematic, is necessary due to a lack of reliable estimates of turnout at each polling station.

⁷⁴ Radio access is measured at the LC2 level, since population data are not available at the polling station level. Although radio access is, like vote totals, an aggregate, rather than an individual measure, I conceptualize this variable as a proxy for the likelihood that an individual LC2 resident receives negative information about Anyolo. As radio prevalence in the LC2 increases, even individuals who rely on word of mouth for their information will have an increased probability of receiving negative information about Anyolo, due to their neighbours’ increased exposure. Figures range from 0.14 to 0.63, with a mean of 0.40 (SD = 0.108).

⁷⁵ Other major contenders in 2001, including former cabinet member Ateker Ejalu and Col. Arapai, were also Movementists.

⁷⁶ Nor was there a significant correlation between non-Iteso support of Anyolo and radio prevalence (r = 0.114, p = 0.267).

⁷⁷ This is not likely to result from any systematic bias against Iteso, as an ethnic group, in Soroti radio. For example, Capt. Mukula, the owner of Voice of Teso, is himself an Etesot.

⁷⁸ This would have allowed inferences about whether negative information about co-ethnics was encouraging abandonment, positive information about non co-ethnics was encouraging defection, or some combination.

⁷⁹ The design here only allows for testing of whether other information dampens ethnicity.

⁸⁰ Bourgault, Louise M., Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995)Google Scholar

Nyamnjoh, Francis B., Africa's Media: Democracy and the Politics of Belonging (New York: Zed Books, 2005)Google Scholar

Hydén, Göran, Leslie, Michael and Ogundimu, Folu F., eds, Media and Democracy in Africa (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2002)Google Scholar

⁸¹ In the event that a household visit failed, the enumerator visited every subsequent household until a successful interaction was completed.

⁸² Subjects were required to be citizens of Uganda and at least eighteen years of age.