Replication data for: The Politicization of Identity: Ethnic Mobilization in Africa’s Ruling and Opposition Parties

A growing body of scholarship finds that politicians respond to electoral incentives in deciding whether to mobilize supporters along ethnic lines. We build on this literature by examining the different incentives facing opposition and ruling parties in Africa for ethnic political mobilization. We argue that strong ruling parties often face minimal incentives to organize supporters along ethnic lines, whereas opposition parties that lack other resources turn to identity politics to mobiliize their supporters. Using Afrobarometer survey data from 14 African countries, we find that self-identified opposition supporters are more likely to identify with their ethnic groups in four African countries and that there is a positive effect cross-nationally of opposition party support on the likelihood of identifying ethnically. In contrast, we show that ruling party supporters are less likely to identify with their ethnic groups in some countries and find no cross-national connection between being a ruling party supporter and ethnic mobilization.