Explaining the African Vote

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。尽管为非洲的民主化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一个方面：为什么非洲人会以他们的方式投票？大多数非洲选举观察员认为，选举过程仅仅是清点族裔人数：所有公民都投票给自己的族裔，而不考虑现任政府的表现，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中，单一民族不能获得多数选票。民族联盟经常破裂和转变，同一民族的政治家是不同政党的成员。在非洲国家，种族对政治的影响差异很大，选举在某些情况下会产生暴力，但在其他情况下不会。此外，我们对非洲选民动机的了解仍然模糊不清，主要基于轶事报道，对少数（未经科学选择的）案例的研究，或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，这是一个过渡中的民主国家，其主要特点是一个占主导地位的民族：纳米比亚的奥万博人占人口的近一半。学者和政策制定者认为纳米比亚正在走向稳定的民主。然而，自独立以来，一个政党（SWAPO）一直主导着政治。这种优势在多大程度上是基于种族主张，在多大程度上是基于绩效或问题评估？了解其选民的动机为更深入地了解非洲政治开辟了道路，并有助于告知学术观点和民主促进方面仍然存在的挑战（或不存在）。这个项目将有更广泛的影响，通过安排四名研究生和一名本科生在该领域。他们将通过帮助构建、管理和分析这次出口调查而获得的知识，是推动培训超越课堂的必要条件。对其中两名学生来说，这将是他们第一次到非洲。对所有人来说，这将是他们第一次参与生成定量的科学生成的原始数据。这项全国性的工作也将有助于纳米比亚数百名普查人员的参与和培训。最后，民意调查还可以对官方选举结果进行另一次核查，鉴于纳米比亚选举委员会在进行自由和公正选举方面所面临的挑战，官方选举结果可能不可靠。

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.