Social Status and Political Participation of Rich and Poor Citizens in Africa: When the Resource-Poor Are the Most Likely Voters

This book seeks to explore a fundamental obscurity in electoral behavior literature: while socioeconomic status is typically robustly and positively associated with a higher propensity for voting worldwide, the relationship in Africa is either negative or non-existent. Building upon the author’s previous works relating to political participation, behavior and electoral processes, this work focuses specifically on 35 sub-Saharan African political system case studies and analyzes why resource-poor Africans tend to display greater electoral participation than their more comparatively affluent counterparts. Drawing from a methodological-theoretical framework utilizing Afrobarometer data and group mobilization theories such as the civic voluntarism model, electoral clientelism, democratic quality, preference theory and institutional perspectives, this book makes an original contribution to analyzing African regions less well-examined in existing comparative participatory political science literatures.

Elvis Bisong Tambe is a senior lecturer in Political Science at Linnaeus University, Sweden.

His research interests lie in the field of political behavior, political participation, public opinion, voting and electoral processes, with a focus on new and emerging democracies. He is the author of Electoral Participation in Newly Consolidated Democracies: Turnout in Africa, Latin America, East Asia and Post-Communist Europe (Routledge, 2021)