Pre-colonial ethnic institutions and party politics in Africa

Francesco Amodio, Giorgio Chiovelli and Dylan Munson

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2022, vol. 50, issue 4, 969-980

Abstract: We examine the role of ethnic institutions on party politics in African democracies. We combine geo-referenced data from 15 countries, 32 parliamentary elections and around 2700 electoral constituencies. First, we document a strong negative association between the degree of pre-colonial ethnic institutional centralization and the local level of competition between political parties in democratic elections today. Second, to address concerns about unobservable differences in geography or history, we show that results hold true when leveraging for identification the redrawing of constituency boundaries over time. Pre-colonial ethnic institutions shape local electoral outcomes and matter for the present and future of African democracies.

Keywords: Africa; Democracy; Ethnicity; Institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N17 O10 O43 P20 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:50:y:2022:i:4:p:969-980

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2022.05.001

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