Ethnolinguistic Favoritism in African Politics

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dickens, Andrew
• 署名单位: Brock University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20160066
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 370-402
• 关键词: economic-performance; linguistic distance; ethnic diversity; public-goods; kenya; institutions; CONFLICT; DEMOCRACY; tanzania; origins

摘要

African political leaders have a tendency to favor members of their own ethnic group. Yet for all other ethnic groups in a country, it is unclear whether having a similar ethnicity to the leader is beneficial. To shed light on this issue, I use a continuous measure of linguistic similarity to quantify the ethnic similarity of a leader to all ethnic groups in a country. Combined with panel data on 163 ethnic groups partitioned across 35 sub-Saharan countries, I use within-group time variation in similarity that results from a partitioned group's concurrent exposure to multiple national leaders. Findings show that ethnic favoritism is more widespread than previously believed: in addition to evidence of coethnic favoritism, I document evidence of non-coethnic favoritism that typically goes undetected in the absence of a continuous measure of similarity. I also find that patronage tends to be targeted toward ethnic regions rather than individuals of a particular ethnic group. I relate these results to the literature on coalition building and provide evidence that ethnicity is one of the guiding principles behind high-level government appointments.