18 networks are more ethnically homogeneous than the population at large, however, this implies that politics could look “ethnic”, even though the strategy of political mobilization is clientelist. Reliance on such narrow promises is more likely when institutionalized political parties, in which like-minded citizens can act collectively to nominate and support political challengers, do not exist. Conflict is more likely in these settings. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, voting in the 2006 elections clearly followed ethnic lines. Lingala speakers voted for Jean-Pierre Bemba (e.g., Bemba received 97 percent of the second round votes from his home province of Equateur) and Swahili speakers voted for Joseph Kabila (e.g., Kabila received 98 percent of the second round votes in his home province of South Kivu) (Weiss 2008).

In principle, ethnic voting could simply be a reflection of citizens‟ confidence that co-ethnic candidates will support the interests of their ethnic group. However, ethnic groups are not politically organized: parties are fragmented (even those appealing to a single ethnic group) and organized around personalities rather than the pursuit of ethnic interests. This is more generally true across Sub-Saharan Africa, where conflict and ethnicity are most often linked. Keefer (2010) uses Afrobarometer survey data from 16 Sub-Saharan African countries and compares the partisan behavior of two kinds of respondents: one belongs to ethnic groups that cluster their political support on only some parties; the other kind is no more likely to support any particular party than the population at large. Respondents from the first group should be less likely than those in the second group to express partisan indifference if clustered partisan support exhibited by the first group is the product of credible appeals by ethnic parties to serve the interests of the entire ethnic group (since support for the party benefits them more than support for no party). In most countries, this is not the case: respondents from ethnic groups that do not cluster their support are no more likely to express partisan indifference than those from ethnic groups that do cluster.

# **Service delivery**

The provision of services to citizens is frequently viewed, particularly by practitioners, as a way to win hearts and minds. For example, service delivery purchases cooperation from locals, making it easier to drive out insurgents. In their study of the conflict in Iraq, Berman, Shapiro and Felter (2009a) offer the first systematic evidence of the proposition that service delivery reduces violence. The discussion here suggests that the efficacy of that exchange depends significantly on collective action.

First, the price, in terms of service delivery, that leaders pay for civilian assistance in an armed conflict depends on civilian expectations that the armed forces with which they are dealing will be able to block reprisals by the other side. An armed group that is poorly organized and ineffective, and therefore less likely to succeed, would therefore have to pay a higher price to elicit cooperation. A given amount of service delivery would have a smaller effect on violence. Berman et al. (2009a) focus on assistance given by US Army commanders directly to communities in Iraq. The less-organized Iraqi army, offering similar levels of service delivery, would have likely elicited less cooperation.

Second, better-organized militaries, which are more effective at fighting, may also be better organized to provide service delivery. In this case, even if service delivery itself contributes nothing to violence, it is a marker for military effectiveness, which would explain lower violence. Evidence from Iraq supports the notion that the organization of the “service provider” varies substantially. Berman, et al. (2009a) observe that other programs in