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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Elephant, Umbrella, and Quarrelling Cocks: Disaggregating Partisanship in Ghana's Fourth Republic
Author:Fridy, Kevin S.ISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:106
Issue:423
Period:April
Pages:281-305
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:elections
ethnicity
voting
New Patriotic Party
National Democratic Congress
Politics and Government
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/4496442
Abstract:Within the literature on Ghanaian partisanship, a debate has arisen between those viewing Ghana's two dominant parties as cleaved along socioeconomic lines and those suggesting that this cleavage runs along ethnic lines. Using election results, constituency maps, census data, and a survey of voters' 'cognitive shortcuts', this article weighs in with the debate. The findings suggest that ethnicity matters in Ghanaian elections far more than socioeconomic variables. The findings do not, however, lead easily towards the gloomy predictions that often accompany ethnic politics. The relationship between ethnicity and partisanship in Ghana is far more complex. Data presented here suggest that Asante and Ewe voters are likely to vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC), respectively, regardless of the candidates they select. Voters of other ethnic backgrounds, who make up the vast majority of Ghanaian voters, view the dominant parties as representative of Asante and Ewe interests but do not themselves vote as a block and base their evaluations of the 'Asante' and 'Ewe' parties ultimately on things other than ethnicity. It is this latter group of voters that makes Ghanaian elections unpredictable and discourages politicians from turning national votes into a zero-sum ethnic census. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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