Targeting coethnic voters, elites, or both? Evidence from aid allocation in Malawi

Abstract

Top leaders in Africa favor their coethnic voters when allocating government resources. However, a growing literature on political elites implies the importance of those actors for mobilizing political support for top leaders—hence, the need for presidents to target elites. Do top leaders target coethnic voters, coethnic elites, or both? To address the question, I use the difference-in-differences estimation drawing upon foreign aid allocation in Malawi during 1999-2010. The results show that controlling for the share of their coethnic voters, constituencies represented by the incumbent president’s coethnic Members of Parliament (MPs) receive 13%–75% more aid disbursement per capita than those represented by non-coethnic MPs. This suggests that leaders target coethnic elites in addition to coethnic voters. I also find that this favoritism is due to coethnic MPs’ electoral mobilization capacity and their personal loyalty to the president. This study highlights the importance of coalition building centered around coethnic elites in multiethnic countries.