A surprising cultural revival is underway among the Lhomwe in Malawi. Since 2008, political elites have put efforts into reinvigorating the ethnic group’s culture after years of cultural marginalization and decline. In her impressive book, The Political Logic of Cultural Revival: Ethnic Visibility, Linked Fate and Electoral Politics in Africa, Amanda Lea Robinson asks why elites attempt to change cultural practices of ordinary people through ethnic revivals. As the title implies, the book focuses on the political strategy behind elite promotion of cultural practices. Robinson argues that ethnocultural revivals “serve as a valuable tool for generating and sustaining an ethnic base of political support because they render ethnic group membership more visible” (p. 3). The book sheds light on the importance of ethnic visibility for ethnic political support and analyzes how and why cultural programming can boost ethnic visibility. Robinson articulates a clear link between cultural practices and electoral politics and marshals compelling evidence to support it. The Political Logic of Cultural Revival provides keen insights for scholars of ethnic politics and deepens our understanding of the politics of cultural promotion.

At the core of Robinson’s theoretical contribution is her observation that there is significant variation in ethnic visibility, both at the individual and group level, which is currently undertheorized in the literature on ethnic politics. Ethnic visibility is the degree to which ethnic identity can be seen or deduced by others. Most theories of ethnic politics assume that ethnic identity is generally visible, without scrutinizing this assumption empirically. Yet, Robinson argues that the actual degree of ethnic visibility matters because higher ethnic visibility increases ethnic voting. The relationship between visibility and ethnic party support rests on linked fate, namely the perception that one’s fate is linked to the ethnic group’s fate. Robinson argues that the more their ethnicity is visible, the more an individual’s fortunes are impacted by their ethnic group, making them more invested in supporting the group politically. This link provides clear incentives for political elites to increase ethnic visibility of group members. Since ethnic visibility is useful to political elites, they should strategically try to increase it. Robinson argues that cultural revivals, including festivals and language promotion, are one strategy of increasing ethnic visibility. Such cultural programming can boost ethnic pride, leading to greater adoption of ethnic signals by group members.

The book develops this multistep argument in detail and provides robust and varied empirical support for it. Part I (chapters 3–6) focuses on establishing the link between ethnic visibility and ethnic politics, whereas Part II (chapters 6–8) zeros in on tying cultural revival to ethnic visibility. Robinson conducted dozens of interviews and fielded two original surveys in urban and rural areas of Malawi. She draws on extensive knowledge and fieldwork in Malawi over many years. She buttresses her findings from Malawi using secondary data from across Africa. She creates an original index of ethnic visibility to establish the variation in ethnic visibility among the Lhomwe and then uses data on linguistic distance between groups across Africa as a proxy for group ethnic visibility (chapter 4). In chapter 5, Robinson provides compelling evidence that ethnic visibility is positively correlated with ethnic party support both at the individual and group level. In Part II, she uses a wealth of data to study the elements of cultural revival such as festivals, dances, or language (chapter 6) and their effect on ethnic visibility. Chapter 7 documents an increase in ethnic pride among the Lhomwe, and studies the adoption of ethnic signs and signals.

This is mixed-methods research at its finest. Robinson is exemplary in the meticulous and transparent discussion of her data and empirical analyses. The rich data that she collected are a contribution in their own right, but they also provide a template for how ethnic visibility or cultural programming could be studied elsewhere. Theoretically, the book makes an important contribution to the ethnic politics literature both in terms of highlighting the significance of ethnic visibility and by providing a greater understanding of how different individuals or groups could experience ethnic politics differently. The work is also an important addition to existing studies of cultural programming in Africa. While there has been an increase in cultural promotion across Africa, many of its consequences are unknown. Robinson’s study clearly highlights the political consequences of such enterprises. The book is also written in an engaging and clear manner, making it accessible to a wide audience.

While Robinson’s focus on the role of ethnic visibility in ethnic politics is very welcome, one could quibble with her characterization of how the existing literature has treated ethnic visibility. She argues that many theories of ethnic politics “assume that ethnic politics are uniformly highly visible” (p. 158). While there is indeed a strong assumption that ethnic identities are easily identifiable, characterizing it as uniform might be too strong. Many of the authors that Robinson quotes qualify the visibility of ethnicity using words such as “usually” or “often” (p. 20). It thus might be an exaggeration to attribute to those authors an assumption of uniform visibility, even though Robinson is right to point out that there has not been much scrutiny of the degree of ethnic visibility either empirically or theoretically.

The book leaves the reader with some questions about the actions of political elites and their intentionality. Robinson establishes convincingly that increasing ethnic visibility can be advantageous for political elites. Yet, the degree to which politicians understand the link between ethnic visibility and party support is less clear. The evidence for the political calculations behind the ethnic revival is not plentiful and, as Robinson discussed in chapter 8, there are multiple motivations behind the emergence of the Lhomwe ethnic association and festivals. This raises the question of whether the effect of ethnic revival on ethnic politics is an intended or unintended consequence.

While the empirical evidence in its totality is very impressive, some elements of the empirical chain of evidence are more ambiguous. For example, Robinson’s proposed mechanism between ethnic visibility and ethnic voting is linked fate. Yet, the overall feeling of linked fate among the Lhomwe is relatively low and absent among the majority of respondents. Likewise, the relationship between ethnic pride and ethnic party support is rather uneven (pp. 142–143).

Any lingering questions do not detract from the overall value and strength of the book. Robinson provides readers with a carefully crafted argument and a detailed empirical analysis, inviting us to (re)consider ethnic visibility in ethnic politics and the effects of ethnic revivals. Given the extent and durability of ethnic politics in Africa, and the spread of ethnic revivals in Africa and beyond, these questions will continue to be relevant. Studying ethnic revival in other contexts, along the template provided by Robinson, can help us understand the extent to which elites can reshape social identities to their advantage.