Editing Benn Miguel Posner 2010 (section)

==='''Introduction and Research Findings'''=== 

The significance of ethnic identities in Africa, especially in social and political contexts, is an ongoing source of debate. One view suggests that ethnic identities are innate and deeply-rooted; "intrinsically part of who people are." Another view holds that ethnic identity is functional, serving as a tool for mobilization and coalition building in the competitive struggle for resources and power. Eifert, Miguel, and Posner analyzed survey data which supported the latter view of the salience of ethnic identity.

The researchers hypothesize that "if ethnic identities are tools that people use to get access to political power, then they are likely to be rendered most salient when political power is at stake— that is, at election time." Second, the researchers hypothesize that the role of ethnic identity will become more important when elections are competitive. To test these assertions, they used survey data on social identity from 22 rounds across ten African nations. They reached the following conclusions from the survey data:
1)In African countries, the strength of ethnic identification changes significantly over time.
2)The changes are related to how close the survey is conducted relative to a presidential election. This effect is also affected by the competitiveness of the election.
3)When the presidential election is very competitive, the chance that the survey responder will identify themselves by ethnic terms increases by 1.8 percent points with every month that it is closer to the election.

The researchers suggest that two mechanisms might account for these findings although they emphasize that their findings do not lend themselves to a certain explanatory mechanism. The first is that people could be mobilized by politicians who "play the ethnic card." The second is that voter's recognize the tendency to distribute resources based off of ethnic lines.

The researchers also wanted to assess which identities are displaced when ethnic identity rises in importance. They looked at four other categories of social identity: ethnicity, class, religion, and gender. The researchers found that increasing the importance of ethnic identity in proximity to an election decreases the importance of class identity.The researchers also wanted to understand what types of people are more likely to identify in ethnic terms. They found strong evidence to support that people who work in modern sectors of the economy are more likely to identify in ethnic terms than people in the traditional sector of the economy.

The researchers also made novel methodological contributions through using a multinomial logit empirical methodology that permits inference about the factors associated with the salience of multiple dimensions of social identity, and through using repeated country-level observations.