Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa

Daniel N. Posner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCLA. His research focuses on ethnic politics, regime change, and the political economy of development in Africa. He has published articles in numerous journals including the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, and the British Journal of Political Science. He has received grants or fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He has been a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and is currently a Carnegie Scholar of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

• 1. Introduction: institutions and ethnic politics; Part I. Accounting for the Ethnic Cleavage Structure: 2. Accounting for Zambia's ethnic cleavage structure I: the emergence of tribal identities in colonial Northern Rhodesia; 3. Accounting for Zambia's ethnic cleavage structure II: the emergence of language identities in colonial Northern Rhodesia; Part II. Accounting for Ethnic Coalition-Building Choices: 4. Ethnicity and ethnic politics in post-independence Zambia; 5. Explaining changing patterns of ethnic politics; Part III. Testing the Model: 6. Competing explanations; 7. Ethnic campaigning: testing the observable implications of the model for elite behavior; 8. Ethnic voting: testing the observable implications of the model for mass behavior; Part IV. Beyond Zambia: 9. Regime change and ethnic politics in Africa; 10. Beyond regime change, beyond Africa; Appendix A. Native authorities and tribal identifications; Appendix B. Survey and focus group methodologies; Appendix C. Tribal affiliations of parliamentary candidates; Appendix D. Tribal demographies of electoral constituencies.

'… a well-researched, rich, sophisticated and lively analysis of ethnic politics in Zambia. … a fascinating account of changes in the dimensions of ethnic identity in Zambian politics. [Posner's] work is, perhaps, the only book that dwells exclusively on why politicians shift from one ethnic card to another. The details he presents about ethnic and language group formation and about perceptions of ethnic favouritism make the book interesting and a must read.' Journal of Modern African Studies