Building Tribes: How Administrative Units Shaped Ethnic Groups in Africa
Please arrive 5 minutes before event begins.
Ethnic identities around the world are deeply linked to the modern territorial state, yet it is often unclear to what extent ethnicity shapes states or states shape ethnic identities. I argue that governments at the national and subnational level have incentives to bias governance in favor of the largest ethnic groups in their territory. The resulting disadvantages for ethnic minorities can motivate minority assimilation and emigration. Both reactions gradually align ethnic with administrative boundaries. I examine this process at the subnational level in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Exploiting credibly exogenous, straight borders allows for causal identification. I find substantive increases in local population shares of administrative units’ predominant ethnic groups at the border, showing that administrative geographies shaped ethnic groups. Additional analyses demonstrate that ethnic assimilation and emigration of local minorities drive the phenomenon. These results highlight important effects of the territorial organization of modern governance on ethnic groups.
Date:
16 October 2020, 12:30 (Friday, 1st week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue:
Colloquium to be hosted on Zoom
Speaker:
Carl Mueller-Crepon (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR)
Organisers:
Petra Schleiter (DPIR),
Nelson Ruiz (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Politics Research Colloquium
Booking required?:
Not required
Booking email:
events@politics.ox.ac.uk
Audience:
This colloquium is usually a closed event to members of Oxford, but this Michaelmas Term, we are delighted to be able to open this event up to 20 external attendees. Please email events@politics.ox.ac.uk to book your place using your official University email address. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. (If you are a member of Oxford, email us, and you can be added to the Politics Research Colloquium mailing list, you do not need to book your place and joining details will be emailed to you)
Editor:
Hannah Vinten
