Colonial legacy, polarization and linguistic disenfranchisement: The case of the Sri Lankan War

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Dower, Paul Castaneda; Ginsburgh, Victor; Weber, Shlomo
• 署名单位: State University System of Florida; Florida International University; New Economic School; Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Universite Catholique Louvain
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.12.006
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 440-448
• 关键词: CONFLICT; polarization; Sri Lanka; Colonial legacy; Linguistic disenfranchisement

摘要

We introduce a new ethnolinguistic polarization measure that takes into account the impact of historical factors on intergroup relations in Sri Lanka. During the colonial era, intergroup relations changed considerably due, in part, to the uneven spread of the English language on the island and its role in British governance. Accordingly, our measure is sensitive to regional differences in English language acquisition before independence. By using a data set on victims of terrorist attacks by district and war period during the protracted war in Sri Lanka, we find that our measure is more strongly correlated with the number of victims, and is associated with 70% more victims, on average, than is a polarization measure based on the context-independent linguistic distances between groups. Thus, the historical underpinnings of our measure illustrate in a quantitative manner the relevance of history for understanding patterns of civil conflict.