The Distribution of Political Campaign Work: A Labor-Market Perspective from Uganda

Abstract

Electoral campaigns in Africa are typically analyzed as political phenomena, with limited attention to their role as sites of economic activity. This paper reframes campaign work—defined as working for a political candidate or party during an election period—as a form of contingent, informal labor embedded in network-mediated mobilization. Using pooled, nationally representative Afrobarometer survey data from Uganda covering multiple election cycles, the study examines who participates in campaign work and how participation is patterned by age, employment status, and material deprivation. Survey-weighted descriptive estimates and logistic regression models show that campaign work is widespread, with participation rates ranging from approximately one-quarter to one-third of adult respondents. Contrary to vulnerability-based expectations, participation is higher among older respondents and those already employed, while material deprivation exhibits no meaningful association. Predicted probabilities confirm a strong age gradient and modest employment effects, alongside a flat relationship with deprivation. These findings suggest that campaign work is not primarily a stop-gap strategy for the poorest youth, but rather a form of contingent political labor shaped by organizational embeddedness, local networks, and reputational access. By treating electoral campaigns as labor-demand events and empirically identifying the socioeconomic profile of campaign workers, the paper bridges political economy and labor-market research and refines how informal political labor is conceptualized in election-intensive contexts.