Explaining the African Vote

解释非洲投票

• 批准号: 0851473
• 负责人: Clark Gibson
• 金额: $ 23.38万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-15 至 2011-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0851473&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Explaining; African; Vote

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Despite pouring millions of dollars into programs to further the democratization of Africa, donors remain uninformed about one of the most important facets of politics on the continent: Why do Africans vote they way they do? Most observers of African elections view the process as a mere ethnic headcount: all citizens vote for their own ethnic group regardless of the performance of the incumbent government and without reference to the issues of the day. Yet there is scant evidence to support this view. In the vast majority of African countries a single ethnic group cannot achieve a majority of the votes. Ethnic coalitions break down and shift frequently and politicians from the same ethnic group are members of different political parties. The salience of ethnicity to politics in African countries varies widely and elections produce violence in some cases but not others. Moreover, our knowledge of the motivations of African voters remains murky, based primarily upon anecdotal reports, studies of a small number of (unscientifically selected) cases, or surveys that measure attitudes but not actual electoral behavior. Surprisingly, few scholars up to this point have employed the most powerful tool to measure vote choice: the exit poll. The investigators plan to explore the determinants of voting in Namibia, a transitioning democracy that features a dominant ethnic group: the Ovambo in Namibia represent nearly half the population. Scholars and policymakers consider Namibia to be on its way to stable democracy. However, a single party (SWAPO) has dominated politics since independence. To what extent is this dominance based on ethnic claims, and to what extent of performance or issue evaluations? Understanding the motivations of its voters opens the way to a deeper understanding of African politics, and help to inform scholarly opinion and the challenges (or not) that remain with respect to democracy promotion. This project will have broader impacts by placing four graduate students and one undergraduate student in the field. The knowledge they will receive through helping to construct, manage, and analyze this exit poll is required to advance training beyond the classroom. For two of the students, it will be their first experience in Africa. For all, it will be the first time they are involved in generating quantitative scientifically produced primary data. This nation-wide exercise will also help in the participation and training of hundreds of enumerators in Namibia. Finally, the poll can also provide another check on the official electoral results which may prove unreliable given the challenges faced by the Namibian electoral commission to conduct a free and fair election.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。尽管为促进非洲民主化的项目投入了数百万美元，但捐助者仍然不了解非洲大陆政治最重要的方面之一：为什么非洲人以他们的方式投票？ 大多数非洲选举观察员认为这一过程仅仅是种族人数统计：所有公民都投票给自己的种族群体，而不管现任政府的表现如何，也不考虑当时的问题。 然而，支持这一观点的证据不足。 在绝大多数非洲国家，一个单一的族裔群体无法获得多数选票。 族裔联盟经常破裂和更换，同一族裔的政治家属于不同的政党。 在非洲国家，族裔对政治的重要性差别很大，选举在某些情况下产生暴力，但在其他情况下则不然。 此外，我们对非洲选民动机的了解仍然模糊不清，主要基于轶事报告，对少数（不科学选择的）案例的研究，或者衡量态度而不是实际选举行为的调查。 令人惊讶的是，到目前为止，很少有学者使用最有力的工具来衡量投票选择：出口民调。调查人员计划探索纳米比亚投票的决定因素，纳米比亚是一个过渡民主国家，其特点是一个占主导地位的民族：纳米比亚的奥万博人占近一半的人口。 学者和决策者认为纳米比亚正在走向稳定的民主。 然而，自独立以来，一个单一的政党（西南非裔人民组织）一直主导着政治。 这种支配地位在多大程度上是基于族裔要求，在多大程度上是基于对业绩或问题的评价？ 了解选民的动机为更深入地了解非洲政治开辟了道路，并有助于为学术观点和民主促进方面仍然存在的挑战提供信息。该项目将通过将四名研究生和一名本科生放在该领域产生更广泛的影响。 他们将通过帮助构建，管理和分析这个出口民意调查获得的知识需要在课堂之外推进培训。对于其中两名学生来说，这将是他们在非洲的第一次经历。对所有人来说，这将是他们第一次参与生成量化的科学原始数据。这项全国性的工作也将有助于纳米比亚数百名人口普查员的参与和培训。最后，投票还可以对官方选举结果进行另一次检查，鉴于纳米比亚选举委员会在举行自由和公正选举方面面临的挑战，官方选举结果可能证明是不可靠的。