Ethnicity and the willingness to sanction violent politicians: evidence from Kenya
Do citizens in newly democratic regimes adjust their expectations of politicians' behaviour depending on contextual cues? This paper addresses the role that ethnicity plays in shaping individuals’ willingness to sanction or disapprove of politicians who violate democratic norms, using Kenya as a case study.
The author suggests that differences in neighborhood-level factors (propensity to violence) can lead to differences in individual attitudes. In addition, it is argued that the influence of co-ethnicity on individual assessments of politicians is conditional. The report comes up with the following findings:
- individuals assess violent politicians from the same ethnic background more positively than they do non-co-ethnics only if these politicians conform to expected political behaviour
- when politicians violate the norms of their community by associating themselves with rival groups, their co-ethnics will sanction them as “strange” politicians
- political alliances and shared partisanship may play as important a role in shaping individual decision-making as co-ethnicity
- respondents who live in more violent neighborhoods don’t differentiate between co-ethnics and non-co-ethnics when evaluating politicians who used violence.
The study concludes there is little evidence that increases in exposure to violence increase respondent’s reliance on ethnicity or distrust of other ethnic groups. In fact, residents of violent slums seem to be more clear-eyed and skeptical of politicians than ordinary people. Thus, they may be less susceptible to the campaigns of the “ethnic entrepreneurs” who feature prominently in most models of ethnic conflict.
