(Why) are populists popular? A survey experiment on voter-party linkages in urban Africa

Africa is rapidly urbanising, with implications for citizenship and politics. One emerging literature examines the role of populism in urban areas in Africa, suggesting lower income urban voters may be likely to support opposition parties or eschew ethnic or clientelist appeals in favor of charismatic political actors, inclusive programmatic policies and anti-elite rhetoric (e.g. Resnick 2014). Despite this, we know relatively little about specifically what it is about populist messaging urban voters may (or may not) respond to, the broader efficacy of clientelist appeals (Collord et al. 2021), or how populist strategies intersect with gender dynamics and attitudes surrounding women's roles in society. We examine (i) the varieties of populist strategies and messaging that parties and political entrepreneurs may use; (ii) what elements of such populist strategies and appeals different voters may actually respond to; and (iii) how populist strategies relate to gender equality and attitudes about women's roles in society. We examine this by leveraging a survey experiment of 1044 respondents in the Kampala metropolitan region of Uganda. We develop and test several series of hypotheses to determine how voting intention and broader support for political candidates may vary by: (i) voter characteristics, including attitudes toward gender roles; (ii) the identity characteristics of political candidates; and (iii) nature of political appeals and messaging. We broadly anticipate that the relevance of policy messaging will exert the strongest effect on voting behaviour and material support, but personal characteristics will be most strongly associated with broader political support. Additionally, we expect that inclusive and programmatic appeals from female candidates will be perceived as most beneficial for gender equality, particularly among women voters. Meanwhile, voters' varying levels of hostile and benevolent sexism will likely moderate their support for different types of populist candidates and appeals.