The specification of ethnic cleavages and ethnopolitical groups for the analysis of democratic competition in contemporary Africa

Abstract

Ethnicity remains an important (but not the only) cost‐effective strategic resource for organizing collective political action in Africa's emerging democracies. To advance systematic analysis of the impact of ethnicity on current patterns of democratic politics and the potential for democratic consolidation, this article describes and presents a comprehensive data set on ethnopolitical groups in all 48 African countries. It explicates the theoretical orientation that informs the data set and the methodology used in defining, identifying and coding ethnopolitical groups.