The study employed a large-N research design, involving data from 41 African countries across four rounds (R6–R9) of Afrobarometer surveys conducted in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023 respectively. Rounds 1–5 were excluded from the analysis because one of the key explanatory variables, social media usage, was only measured in Round 6 (2016) for the first time. The final list of countries for each round of the survey is contained in the Online Appendix. The research activity is part of the Megatrends Afrika project which focuses on three research areas of “Violent Actors and the Transformation of Conflict”, “Megatrends between Democratization and Autocratization” and “Global Power Shifts and Multipolarity” to analyse how global megatrends shape African states and societies. The aim of the project is to provide political decision-makers with evidence-based policy advice and to contribute to a more differentiated public debate on Africa policy. Files and formats: [Dataset_10.5281/zenodo.15960355.dta]: Dataset (.csv) [Dataset_10.5281/zenodo.15960355.csv]: Dataset (.dta) [Do-file_110.5281/zenodo.15960355.txt]: Do file containing the replication code (.txt) [Do-file_10.5281/zenodo.15960355.do]: Do file containing the replication code (.do) Additional material: [Appendix-to-WorkingPaper_110.5281/zenodo.15960355.pdf]: Appendix to the publication mentioned above including explanations to the dataset (e.g. list of countries and variables) and results of robustness checks (PDF/A)

Megatrends Afrika is a joint project of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).

Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Federal Ministry of Defence.

The research data and replication code was initially produced in STATA. We recommend to use the .dta files if possible. empty cells = N/A