What Explains the African Vote?

1. Using Exit Poll Data from Kenya to Explore Ethnicity and Government Performance in Vote Choice What Explains the African Vote? Clark C. Gibson James D. Long Department of Political Science UC San Diego

2. What Explains the African Vote?What are the determinants of voter choice in the December 2007 Kenyan elections?

3. Plan of talk • Back story: Six months of silence • Theory: Approaches to African voting behavior. • Background: Kenya’s 2007 election context. • Data: Exit poll. • Tests and results: a.) descriptive and cross tabs b.) multivariate tests c.) survey experiment 6. Wrap-up

4. Back story • Six months of silence

5. What's Really Going On in Kenya? And why didn't a U.S.-funded group release its exit-poll data? Slate Magazine, 1/2/08 Kenya: The Mysterious Exit Poll AllAfrica.com 1/15/8 Kenyan president lost election, according to U.S. exit poll McClatchey newspapers1/14/08 “IRI will not release any polling results unless and until we are confident in the integrity of the data.” International Republican Institute 1/15/08

7. U.S. Ambassador Ranneberger:  “…it is my understanding that this ‘exit poll’ was part of a training exercise and was never intended for publication.” America.gov 3/8/08 Kenya winner lost, U.S. poll indicates Belated tally suggests election was stolen Chicago Tribune 7/9/08 Testify before the Kriegler Commission 7/15/08

8. Exit Poll Results:Presidential Race Raila 46.07% Kibaki 40.17% Kalonzo 10.22% N = 5,495 Margin of error = 1.32

9. 2. Theory: Approaches to explaining voting behavior in Africa

10. Approaches to voting behavior in Africa Identity/Expressive voting (Horowitz) Elections become ethnic head counts May even vote against their policy preferences Policy voting (Hechter, Bates, Bratton, Mattes) Co-ethnics care about same policies Giving your co-ethnic a break on policy evaluation Can be observationally equivalent to identity

11. Identity and policy are incomplete explanations for Kenya’s electoral outcomes Kibaki’s (Kikuyu) and Raila’s (Luo) groups cannot win election alone. Must at least have coalitions. Some ethnic groups split their presidential votes. Leaders from same ethnic groups join multiple coalitions.

12. Approaches to voting behavior in Africa • Government performance • Retrospective evaluations – throw the rascals out (Fiorina) • Prospective evaluations – who will do best looking forwards (Fearon) • Spatial voting – select the candidate nearest to you on the issues (Downs) • But ethnicity means something in Africa

13. Applying theory to Africa • Not clear what “performance” means in the African context. • What is the relationship between ethnicity and performance? Do voters use an ethnic filter on this info as akin to party ideology in the U.S.? • Observational equivalence of theoretical predictions.

14. Approaches to voting behavior in Africa • Information (Popkin, Ferree, Dawson) • Like policy, but less direct link between interests and behavior • Uncertainty pushes voter to seek cognitive shortcuts: • Leaders (co-ethnic or not gives information) • Past performance of ethnic groups • Campaigns / issues • Parties

15. Argument: Government performance affects African (Kenyan) voting behavior • Kenyan elections clearly not ethnic headcounts • Information comes from: • Ethnicity – hardcore • Ethnic filters – policy history / filters (including retrospective and prospective thinking) • Government performance • (Candidates, campaigns, and issues only indirectly tested in this paper)

16. Hypotheses Hypothesis 1.(Identity voting) If a voter has a co-ethnic candidate, she will vote for that candidate (if possible). Hypothesis 2.(Policy voting) • Co-ethnics are more forgiving for poor policy performance (in this paper) • Co-ethnics vote to secure favored policy (not). Hypothesis 3.(Government performance) If a voter believes that the government has performed well, she will be more likely to vote for the incumbent.

17. 3. Background: Kenya’s 2007 election context

18. Background: Ethnic groups Kikuyu22% (President Kibaki’s group) Luhya14% Luo13% (Odinga’s group) Kalenjin12% Kamba11% (Musyoka’s group) Kisii6% Meru6% Other African 15%, Non-African 1%

19. Background: The Players • Mwai Kibaki (Kikuyu) running for a second term; Kikuyu long dominant in Kenyan politics • Raila Odinga (Luo) is main challenger • Musyoka (Kamba) a distant third • All three candidates members of the same coalition in 2002! • 2007 is fourth multiparty election (1992, 1997, 2002)

20. Background: The Issues • High expectations for Kibaki after 2002 victory • Economy grows (7%) • Delivers free primary education, promises free secondary • Shuffling of ECK • Rendition of Muslims • Raila says Kibaki unfulfilled promises, failed performance • Failures in reform, corruption, poverty, unemployment, service delivery • Majimbo (federalism)

21. 4. Data: Exit poll

22. Exit Poll: Origins • UCSD, International Republican Institute (IRI), Strategic Research with USAID grant to study determinants of the Kenyan vote. • Allows researches to match attitudes and government evaluations with vote choice.

23. Exit Poll: Sampling Issues 5,495 surveys, nationally representative: 8/8 provinces; 69/71 districts; 179/210 constituencies. Good for provincial estimates (“25% in 5 provinces” rule). Multi-stage cluster sampling proportionate to size, using final ECK published registration. Random selection of polling stations within constituencies, random selection of respondents (every 5th person).

24. Exit Poll: 30 Questions Demographics Process and timing of voting Performance of local, parliamentary, and central government Attitudes about policies, issues and ethnicity Vote choice for local, MP, president

25. 5. Tests: a.) descriptive and cross tabs

26. Ethnic Group and Vote Choice

27. Raila’s Groups

28. Raila’s Groups Expanded

29. Kibaki’s Groups

30. Mixed Voting Patterns

31. State of the nation's economy (by vote)

32. Is it more important for candidates to have experience or new ideas? (by vote)

33. Which issue matters most to your presidential vote?

34. 5. Tests: b.) multivariate

35. Logit Model for Kibaki Vote sig * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; ***p<0.001 Coefficients shown. Constants and controls suppressed.

36. Predicted Probabilities of a Vote for Kibaki (confidence intervals)

37. Government Services on Vote for Kibaki

38. Kibaki’s Promises on Vote for Kibaki

39. Family Economy on Vote for Kibaki

40. 5. Tests: c.) survey experiment

41. Survey experimentPercent all respondents saying very or somewhat likely to vote for that candidate; random assignment of ethnicity and performance

42. Survey experimentPercent all respondents saying very or somewhat likely to vote for that candidate; random assignment of ethnicity and performance

43. Survey experimentPercent all respondents saying very or somewhat likely to vote for that candidate; random assignment of ethnicity and performance

44. 6. Wrap up: What Explains the African Vote?

45. What Explains the African Vote? • Hundreds of millions of $ spent on democracy promotion – be we don’t even know what motivates African voters! • Ethnicity • Performance through filters • Performance • Future work • Ghanaian elections (December 2007) • South African elections (Spring 2008) • Campaign speeches

46. "IRI is the sole funder, producer, and/or source of the exit poll"

48. Prospective and Retrospective Votes for Kibaki

49. Multinomial Logit Vote Choice Model

50. Difference between exit poll and official results