Horowitz's book is a substantiated plea for a more nuanced approach to understanding ethnic politics in Africa. He maintains that the dominant narrative of voters supporting members of their group due to expectations of co-ethnic favouritism overstates the centrality of ethnic favouritism in African politics and underestimates the sophistication of both politicians and voters across the continent. Horowitz expertly argues that national-level politicians (i.e. presidential candidates) in diverse societies must appeal to voters outside their co-ethnic core support base if they hope to obtain office. This need forces them to target ethnic swing voters (defined as those ethnic groups that do not have a co-ethnic in the race). To effectively target these voters, candidates must make universal promises to convince these swing voters that not only the candidate's co-ethnics will benefit. At the same time, they accuse their rivals of ethnic favouritism to limit their appeal beyond their co-ethnic base. Once in office, these candidates must then make good on their promises if they hope to remain in office. Horowitz therefore traces the ethno-electoral incentives of the campaign trail to universal policymaking and provision. His core cases are Kenya's 2007, 2013 and 2017 elections and universal primary education provision. However, he also traces political dynamics and universal policymaking trends from independence to contemporary Kenya. He also convincingly applies the argument to the Ghanaian case.
Horowitz's theory builds on intuitions about politics in Africa and established theories of electoral politics/behaviour to build his case: politicians in diverse societies will use all possible tools to improve their chances of winning an election rather than, as past research in Africa has overemphasised, focus on mobilising one's core supporters via co-ethnic favouritism. While the logic is intuitive and the theory not necessarily groundbreaking, it is the first to so clearly make the important point that ethnicity matters in politics, from campaigns to policymaking, but in nuanced ways. This nuance considers that ethnicity matters beyond co-ethnic favouritism and rather shapes who is and is not relatively up for grabs and thus how parties/candidates approach different ethnic communities during campaigns and in policymaking. Politics can be ethnic and yet policymaking can be universal (rather than clientelist or particularist). As such, it challenges the co-ethnic voting/favouritism narrative that dominates studies and popular understandings of African politics. The fact that ethnicity enters politics in these nuanced ways should be obvious to us, and yet the literature, by and large, does not make this point. Horowitz pushes us, like much of the recent work on ethnic politics in Africa, to move beyond African politics as ethnic politics as usual.
His evidence is convincing and appropriate. Kenya presents a hard case given that ethnicity is so central to politics and ethnic divisions are routinely hardened via political competition. Using original surveys, interviews and archival sources he presents a convincing case that Kenyan politics is more than co-ethnic voting and favouritism, but rather it is a balancing act for politicians as they seek to appeal to both swing voters (who require and expect inclusive policies/programmes) and their co-ethnic core (which require and expect favouritism).
Horowitz's careful approach is something to be emulated. He makes a convincing case but is careful not to oversell. In fact, at times he is so cautious in his conclusions and clear with potential limitations that he often, I would argue, under-sells the study. Given this honesty and care, and the important contribution the book makes, I expect any class on ethnic and identity politics, especially those for graduate students, would find this book a necessity for inclusion. This book is an important step in our understanding of ethnic politics that will shift how we approach, understand and theorise about ethnic politics.
The main shortcoming I see in the book is the need for more clarity around the role of different party actors. To make the case that politicians focus on universal appeals, Horowitz turns to where presidential candidates hold rallies. The assumption, sometimes explicitly stated, is that lower-level party operatives focus on mobilising core voters. This was demonstrated to some extent via quotes from interviews, but more could be done to help the reader see exactly how these decisions are made and how parties decide to divide both responsibilities and resources across converting swing voters and mobilising the core. Perhaps given past research, it was not necessary to go into detail on the process of core mobilisation, but to paint a full picture of candidates’ campaign strategies/choices would have been extremely helpful. Perhaps this is an obvious way in which future work could build on and extend Horowitz's important contribution.
