Digital Inequalities and the Politics of Mobilisation and Trust in Sub-Saharan Africa

How do digital inequalities reshape political mobilisation and institutional trust in Sub-Saharan Africa? Digital technologies can widen access to political information and lower coordination costs for collective action, yet unequal access and differentiated use may also deepen political inequality and erode legitimacy. I examine whether digital exposure is associated with electoral and non-electoral mobilisation and with trust in public institutions across Sub-Saharan Africa. I draw on Afrobarometer survey microdata from 35 countries (N = 548,644) and construct a Digital Exposure Index capturing disparities in both access to, and use of, digital technologies. Using multivariate models with extensive individual-level controls and country-level adjustments, I analyse how digital exposure relates to multiple forms of political mobilisation, including protest participation, and to trust in key government institutions. The results show that higher digital exposure is associated with greater non-electoral mobilisation, especially protest participation, but with lower institutional trust. These relationships are substantively meaningful and robust to alternative specifications. The findings are consistent with a dual mechanism. Digital connectivity strengthens citizens’ informational and organisational capacity, enabling coordination and amplifying political demands, while simultaneously increasing exposure to critical narratives of governance failure, corruption, and unmet promises, thereby weakening trust in state institutions. I argue that digital inequality is not only a technological gap but an emerging political cleavage with implications for democratic responsiveness and political stability. The paper contributes to scholarship on democratisation and governance in Africa by providing original cross-national evidence on the mobilisation-trust trade-off generated by uneven digital exposure.