TY - BOOK ID - 133311075 TI - The Ethnicity Distraction ? : Political Credibility and Partisan Preferences in Africa PY - 2010 PB - Washington, D.C., The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Candidates KW - Constituencies KW - Constituency KW - Decision making KW - Democracies KW - Democracy KW - Democratic development KW - Democratic process KW - Democratic regimes KW - Education KW - Education and Society KW - Educational Sciences KW - Election KW - Elections KW - Electorate KW - Governance KW - Health KW - Nutrition and Population KW - Parliamentary Government KW - Policy issues KW - Political campaigns KW - Political parties KW - Political party KW - Political systems KW - Population Policies KW - Public good KW - Public interest KW - Public services KW - Social Development KW - Social Inclusion & Institutions UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:133311075 AB - Much of the research on ethnicity, development and conflict implicitly assumes that ethnic groups act collectively in pursuit of their interests. Collective political action is typically facilitated by political parties able to make credible commitments to pursue group interests. Other work, however, emphasizes the lack of political credibility as a source of adverse development outcomes. Evidence presented here uses partisan preferences across 16 Sub-Saharan African countries to distinguish these positions. The evidence is inconsistent with the credibility of party commitments to pursue collective ethnic interests: ethnic clustering of political support is less widespread than expected; members of clustered ethnic groups exhibit high rates of partisan disinterest and are only slightly more likely to express a partisan preference; and partisan preferences are more affected by factors, such as gift-giving, often associated with low political credibility. These findings emphasize the importance of looking beyond ethnicity in analyses of economic development. ER -