Mobile technology and political behaviour in Africa

In recent decades, mobile technology has become widespread across Sub-Saharan Africa. Mobile phones provide material benefits, but also shape how people learn about the economy, are targeted by political parties, and are taxed by the state. Through three interrelated chapters, I examine these multifaceted political consequences of Africa’s “mobile revolution”. Each chapter focuses on a distinct type of technology, and a particular mechanism by which it shapes political outcomes, drawing on a range of cross-national data and fieldwork in Ghana and Malawi. Chapter one asks how basic mobile phones shape the availability of political information. I show that rural voters across Africa use mobile phones to regularly call relatives living in towns and cities. This rising domestic connectivity leads to the diffusion of new information from urban centres, leading to a fall in rural political trust and the urban-rural divides that structure politics in many African states. Chapter two turns to mobile internet and the quality of elections. Focusing on a controversial election in Malawi, I show that 3G coverage reduces ruling party vote share and election irregularities. I then build on fieldwork to explore mechanisms, finding that opposition groups use social media to campaign, online platforms expanded the reach of civic education groups, and election workers used WhatsApp to coordinate on polling day. Chapter three focuses on mobile payment platforms and recent moves by governments to tax them. These taxes are a substantive source of domestic revenue for low-capacity states, but have been difficult to implement due to public backlash. Using a conjoint choice experiment in Malawi, I examine how these taxes could be designed to attract greater support. The results stress the importance of earmarking revenues for local services and providing exemptions to protect the poorest citizens.