Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T20:02:13.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethnic Violence in Africa: Destructive Legacies of Pre-Colonial States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2019

Jack Paine
Get access

Abstract

What explains differential rates of ethnic violence in postcolonial Africa? I argue that ethnic groups organized as a precolonial state (PCS) exacerbated interethnic tensions in their postcolonial country. Insecure leaders in these countries traded off between inclusive coalitions that risked insider coups and excluding other ethnic groups at the possible expense of outsider rebellions. My main hypotheses posit that PCS groups should associate with coups because their historically rooted advantages often enabled accessing power at the center, whereas other ethnic groups in their countries—given strategic incentives for ethnopolitical exclusion—should fight civil wars more frequently than ethnic groups in countries without a PCS group. Analyzing originally compiled data on precolonial African states provides statistical evidence for these implications about civil wars and coups between independence and 2013 across various model specifications. Strikingly, through 1989, thirty of thirty-two ethnic group-level major civil war onsets occurred in countries with a PCS group.

Keywords

African politicscivil warcoup d'étatethnic politicshistorical statehood.
Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , Summer 2019 , pp. 645 - 683
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aksoy, Deniz, Carter, David B., and Wright, Joseph. 2015. Terrorism and the Fate of Dictators. World Politics 67 (3):423–68.Google Scholar
Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Bates, Robert H., Nunn, Nathan, and Robinson, James. 2014. Africa's Development in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Alsan, Marcella. 2015. The Effect of the Tsetse Fly on African Development. American Economic Review 105 (1):382–410.Google Scholar
Bechtold, Peter K. 1990. More Turbulence in Sudan: A New Politics This Time? Middle East Journal 44 (4):579–95.Google Scholar
Bell, Curtis, and Sudduth, Jun Koga. 2017. The Causes and Outcomes of Coup During Civil War. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61 (7):1432–55.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Reynal-Querol, Marta. 2014. The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa. American Political Science Review 108 (2):319–36.Google Scholar
Bockstette, Valerie, Chanda, Areendam, and Putterman, Louis. 2002. States and Markets: The Advantage of an Early Start. Journal of Economic Growth 7 (4):347–69.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Buhaug, Halvard. 2013. Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Wimmer, Andreas, and Min, Brian. 2010. Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis. World Politics 62 (1):87–119.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2011. What Is an Ethnic Party? Party Politics 17 (2):151–69.Google Scholar
Collier, Ruth Berins. 1982. Regimes in Tropical Africa: Changing Forms of Supremacy, 1945–1975. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Colson, Elizabeth. 1969. African Society at the Time of the Scramble. In Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, Volume 1: The History and Politics of Colonialism 1870–1914, edited by Gann, L.H. and Duignan, Peter, 27–65. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Decalo, Samuel. 1990. Coups and Army Rule in Africa. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio. 2015. State History and Contemporary Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa. Working paper.Google Scholar
Dincecco, Mark, Fenske, James E., and Onorato, Massimiliano Gaetano. 2016. Is Africa Different? Historical Conflict and State Development. Working paper.Google Scholar
Dinwiddy, Hugh. 1981. The Search for Unity in Uganda: Early Days to 1966. African Affairs 80 (321):501–18.Google Scholar
Doornbos, Martin R. 1977. Ankole. In African Kingships in Perspective: Political Change and Modernization in Monarchical Settings, edited by Lemarchand, Rene, 236–59. Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Englebert, Pierre, Tarango, Stacy, and Carter, Matthew. 2002. Dismemberment and Suffocation: A Contribution to the Debate on African Boundaries. Comparative Political Studies 35:1093–118.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 2008. Ethnic Mobilization and Ethnic Violence. In Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, edited by Weingast, Barry R. and Wittman, Donald, 852–68. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 2010. Governance and Civil War Onset. World Bank, background paper. Available at <http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01306/web/pdf/wdr%20background%20paper_fearon_0.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Fearon, James D., Kasara, Kimuli, and Laitin, David D.. 2007. Ethnic Minority Rule and Civil War Onset. American Political Science Review 101 (1):187–93.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D., and Laitin, David D.. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97 (1):75–90.Google Scholar
Fenske, James. 2014. Ecology, Trade, and States in Pre-Colonial Africa. Journal of the European Economic Association 12 (3):612–40.Google Scholar
Finer, Samuel E. 2002. The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics. Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Francois, Patrick, Rainer, Ilia, and Trebbi, Francesco. 2015. How Is Power Shared in Africa? Econometrica 83 (2):465–503.Google Scholar
Gassebner, Martin, Gutmann, Jerg, and Voigt, Stefan. 2016. When to Expect a Coup d'état? An Extreme Bounds Analysis of Coup Determinants. Public Choice 169 (3–4):293–313.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gennaioli, Nicola, and Rainer, Ilia. 2007. The Modern Impact of Precolonial Centralization in Africa. Journal of Economic Growth 12 (3):185–234.Google Scholar
Gerring, John, Ziblatt, Daniel, Van Gorp, Johan, and Arevalo, Julian. 2011. An Institutional Theory of Direct and Indirect Rule. World Politics 63 (3):377–433.Google Scholar
Harkness, Kristin A. 2018. When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kohli, Atul. 2004. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lacina, Bethany. 2015. Periphery Versus Periphery: The Stakes of Separatist War. Journal of Politics 77 (3):692–706.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, Rene, ed. 1977. African Kingships in Perspective: Political Change and Modernization in Monarchical Settings. Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, Paul E. 1992. Historical Setting. In Nigeria: A Country Study, edited by Metz, Helen Chapin, 1–84. Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2008. Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule. Comparative Political Studies 41 (4–5):715–41.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McIntosh, Susan Keech. 2005. Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michalopoulos, Stelios and Papaioannou, Elias. 2013. Pre-Colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development. Econometrica 81 (1):113–52.Google Scholar
Michalopoulos, Stelios and Papaioannou, Elias. 2016. The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa. American Economic Review 106 (7):1802–848.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter. 1959. Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter. 1967. Ethnographic Atlas. University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Nunn, Nathan. 2008. The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades. Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (1):139–76.Google Scholar
Nunn, Nathan, and Wantchekon, Leonard. 2011. The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa. American Economic Review 101 (7):3221–52.Google Scholar
Osafo-Kwaako, Philip, and Robinson, James A.. 2013. Political Centralization in Pre-Colonial Africa. Journal of Comparative Economics 41 (1):6–21.Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2004. Measuring Ethnic Fractionalization in Africa. American Journal of Political Science 48 (4):849–63.Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2005. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Jonathan M. 2014. Trading Coups for Civil War: The Strategic Logic of Tolerating Rebellion. African Security Review 23 (4):329–38.Google Scholar
Powell, Robert. 2004. The Inefficient Use of Power: Costly Conflict with Complete Information. American Political Science Review 98 (2):231–41.Google Scholar
Putterman, Louis. 2008. Agriculture, Diffusion and Development: Ripple Effects of the Neolithic Revolution. Economica 75 (300):729–48.Google Scholar
Quinlivan, James T. 1999. Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East. International Security 24 (2):131–65.Google Scholar
Raleigh, Clionadh, Linke, Andrew, Hegre, Håvard, and Karlsen, Joakim. 2010. Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 47 (5):651–60.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2012. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa. In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, 211–62. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, Richard J. 2012. Warfare in African History. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reno, William. 2003. The Changing Nature of Warfare and the Absence of State-Building in West Africa. In Irregular Armed Forces and Their Role in Politics and State Formation, edited by Davis, Diane and Pereira, Anthony, 322–45. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roessler, Philip. 2011. The Enemy Within: Personal Rule, Coups, and Civil War in Africa. World Politics 63 (2):300–46.Google Scholar
Roessler, Philip. 2016. Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roessler, Philip, and Ohls, David. 2018. Self-Enforcing Power Sharing in Weak States. International Organization 72 (2):423–54.Google Scholar
Rothchild, Donald, and Rogin, Michael. 1966. Uganda. In National Unity and Regionalism in Eight African States, edited by Carter, Gwendolen M., 337–440. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Siegmar. 1999. Uganda. In Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, edited by Nohlen, Dieter, Thibaut, Bernard, and Krennerich, Michael, 925–38. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sklar, Richard L., and Whitaker, C.S.. 1966. The Federal Republic of Nigeria. In National Unity and Regionalism in Eight African States, edited by Carter, Gwendolen M., 7–150. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Southall, Aidan. 1974. State Formation in Africa. Annual Review of Anthropology 3:153–65.Google Scholar
Sudduth, Jun Koga. 2017. Strategic Logic of Elite Purges in Dictatorships. Comparative Political Studies 50 (13):1768–801.Google Scholar
Svolik, Milan W. 2012. The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Talmadge, Caitlin. 2015. The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tartter, Jean R. 1992. National Security. In Sudan: A Country Study, edited by Metz, Helen Chapin, 229–76. Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2009. Museveni's Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime. Rienner.Google Scholar
Vogt, Manuel, Bormann, Nils-Christian, Rüegger, Seraina, Cederman, Lars-Erik, Hunziker, Philipp, and Girardin, Luc. 2015. Integrating Data on Ethnicity, Geography, and Conflict: The Ethnic Power Relations Data Set Family. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (7):1327–42.Google Scholar
Warner, Carolyn M. 2001. The Rise of the State System in Africa. Review of International Studies 27 (5):65–89.Google Scholar
Wig, Tore. 2016. Peace from the Past: Pre-Colonial Political Institutions and Civil Wars in Africa. Journal of Peace Research 53 (4):509–24.Google Scholar
Wucherpfennig, Julian, Hunziker, Philipp, and Cederman, Lars-Erik. 2016. Who Inherits the State? Colonial Rule and Post-Colonial Conflict. American Journal of Political Science 60 (4):882–98.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Paine supplementary material

Paine supplementary material 1

Download Paine supplementary material(File)
File 456.9 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Paine supplementary material

Paine supplementary material 2

Download Paine supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 483.3 KB