The first empirical chapter (Chapter 4) tests the proposition that partisanship in electoral autocracies is a unique social identity. After demonstrating the difference in political communications between ruling parties and opposition parties in electoral autocracies, the foundation of partisan divides is illustrated using data from an original survey fielded in Cameroon. The data from Cameroon is also used to illustrate the nature of in-group preferencing and out-group animus predicated on partisan identities. The second half of the chapter uses World Values Survey data to illustrate two key points. First, these political divides are not unique to Cameroon but are a structural feature of partisanship across electoral autocracies from Bangladesh to Venezuela. Second, though this divide is not unique to Cameroon, it is unique to electoral autocracies.

Chapter 9 uses both original survey data from Cameroon and cross-national data from the Afrobarometer to provide evidence for the argument that political geography affects nonpartisan and cross-partisan political beliefs. It first demonstrates that people in different party strongholds describe themselves using categorically different kinds of adjectives, reflecting localized understandings of citizenship shaped by political geography. It then turns to the importance of understanding the effect of political geography on public opinion more broadly: Using Afrobarometer data from five different electoral autocracies, it reveals not only that public opinion is systematically different between party strongholds, even controlling for partisanship, but that even the beliefs of ruling party partisans change depending upon where they live. Finally, using Afrobarometer data from Uganda and Ghana, the chapter shows, first, that the development of party strongholds is not endogenous to preexisting political beliefs, and, second, that these patterns are, indeed, unique to electoral autocracies and do not hold in a democratic context.