How do politicians try to win voters' support in developing, ethnically diverse democracies? Most studies assume that in the absence of programmatic differences ethnic divisions drive electoral politics in ethnically diverse countries, Africa in particular. Yet, while a person's ethnicity is a good predictor of voting in some countries, knowing all the dimensions of a voter's ethnic background in other contexts yields little information about how he is likely to vote. I seek to unravel this puzzling variation: I investigate why ethnic voting blocs emerge in some diverse societies but not in others. I argue that where there were strong local leaders at the onset of mass politics, politicians used them as electoral intermediaries between themselves and voters, instead of appealing to ethnic identities. Intermediaries are willing to support candidates from various ethnic backgrounds, based on the latter's ability to reward the intermediary for his support, hence electoral mobilization through intermediaries does not produce ethnic voting blocs. However, not all societies had influential local leaders.

I combine original interviews with politicians in Senegal and Benin, electoral data, survey and ethnographic data from secondary sources to show how the structure of social bonds affected the type of electoral politics in these two otherwise similar countries. In Senegal, where there were strong local leaders at the onset of mass politics, politicians used them as electoral intermediaries, forging cross-ethnic alliances. In Benin, traditional authority was much weaker than in Senegal and in the absence of credible intermediaries politicians relied on shared ethnic identity with voters to garner electoral support.