Explaining voter preferences in Africa's democracies.

In this paper we investigate voting behavior in Africa and seek to explain rural and urban differences in the preference for the dominant parties in a subset of African countries where the independence party has continually won all elections keeping them in power to this day. We ask why ruling parties continue to receive the majority of rural and very little urban support. The literature on African voting patterns has grown considerably but we find that the rural/urban dichotomy has yet to be fully explained. Our research seeks to explain this dichotomy. We find that rural voters differ in their understanding of democracy, policy preferences, access to independent media and knowledge about opposition political parties, all of which influence support for or against the ruling party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]