Abstract
The ethnic identities of many communities in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa are layered: larger-scale superordinate ethnic groups consist of smaller-scale subordinate ethnic (sub)groups. This underappreciated feature of ethnicity has far-reaching political ramifications. In settings where ethnic identities are layered, politicians can access the considerable benefits of coethnic voting by mobilizing the electoral support of fellow members of any ethnic layer. Presented with such choices, election candidates adapt their identity mobilization strategies to the ethnic composition of electorates in order to target and coordinate with suitable coethnic electorate segments, form winning coalitions, and fragment the voting blocs assembled by their electoral rivals. The multiplicity and malleability of available layered identities facilitates both the construction and fragmentation of cross-segment alliances as well as individual segments. Evidence from fifty-four electoral contests in Marsabit in Northern Kenya provides support for this argument.