Abstract
This study shows that variations in violence across communities in Africa can be traced back to the proportion of common-pool resources (CPRs) in historical ethnic homelands, which determines current levels of trust in local chiefs or neighbors. Combining individual-level trust survey data with historical data of the ethnic homeland’s geographical features, this study finds that higher levels of CPRs-driven communal trust raises the number of militias’ battle casualties against external groups but reduces violence against in-group civilians. Evidence from diverse identification strategies suggests that the relationships are causal. Moreover, this study shows that the penetration of state power to local communities alleviates the offensive nature of communal trust. These findings not only highlight the contrasting causal effect of in-group trust on communal violence, which is internally pacifying yet externally combative, but also reveal its relational nature, whose attributes are determined by the community’s connectivity with the state.
Résumé
Cette étude montre que les variations de la violence dans les communautés en Afrique peuvent être attribuées à la proportion de ressources en propriété commune dans les patries ethniques historiques, qui détermine les niveaux actuels de confiance dans les chefs locaux ou les voisins. En combinant les données d'enquêtes sur la confiance au niveau individuel avec des données historiques sur les caractéristiques géographiques de la patrie ethnique, cette étude révèle que lorsque la confiance est élevée au sein de la communauté en raison des ressources en propriété commune, le nombre de victimes des combats entre milices et groupes externes augmente, mais la violence contre les civils au sein du groupe diminue. Des preuves issues de diverses stratégies d'identification suggèrent que ces corrélations sont causales. De plus, cette étude montre que la pénétration du pouvoir de l'État au sein des communautés locales atténue le caractère offensif de la confiance communautaire. Ces résultats mettent en évidence l'effet causal contrasté de la confiance au sein du groupe sur la violence communautaire, qui a un effet pacifiant à l’intérieur du groupe mais peut provoquer des combats à l’extérieur. Ils en révèlent également la nature relationnelle, dont les attributs sont déterminés par la connectivité de la communauté avec l'État.
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Notes
The persistence of internal norms of trust have been empirically supported by various social science literature. Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) find that in Africa a culture of mistrust formed by the slave trade in the nineteenth century determines current levels of trust, arguing that “when individual[s] relocate, their internal beliefs move with them, even though their external environment changes (p. 3223).” Algan and Cahuc (2010) and Rice and Feldman (1997) also empirically identify strong correlations between the level of trust among U.S. immigrants and that of their countries of origin, no matter how far and how long ago they emigrated.
Rebel’s dilemma indicates that rational actors choose not to participate a rebellion even though the net benefits incurred from the violence are large. This is because everyone receives the benefits derived from the violence but the costs are borne only by the participants (Lichbach 1998).
Although variations exist across countries, the territorial level of chief-centered governance is mostly district (Boone 2017; Molenaar et al. 2019). Boone (2017) explains that the political dominance of state-recognized tribes was institutionalized in the colonial era and the territories of the certified tribe were colonial district-level (or canton) jurisdictions, most of which persist as districts in contemporary Africa. As the territorial level of chief-centered governance is district (or canton), the chiefs are responsible for the main administrative works of the district—resolving communal disputes in courts, allocating propriety right of natural resources, collecting taxes and making decisions on security matters (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2015; Molenaar et al. 2019; Ubink 2008). The role of a district-level local government council is only restricted to the provision of public goods such as education, health, or sanitation (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2015; Ubink 2008).
To estimate its impact on political violence, the trust in local chiefs is principally used because the chiefs are responsible for making decision about communal security. The 2SLS estimates of trust in neighbors on political violence are reported in Online Appendix Table A5. The causal effects of trust in neighbors are mostly similar with those of trust in local chiefs: it reduces internal violence while increasing external violence. Although the estimates are statistically significant and economically meaningful, the F-statistics are smaller than the rule of thumb, owing to the limited observation numbers.
As shown in Table 2, the size of the community is included as a covariate. Thus, the total number of square kilometers of land under water can be considered as the proportion of inland water bodies of the historical ethnic homeland since the variation of the territorial size of community is controlled for.
To obtain a thorough comprehension of the underlying justifications for incorporating covariates, kindly refer to Section 3 of the Online Appendix.
It is true that the district-level communities nearer to the center may have heterogenous ethnic composition groups because of the inter-ethnic group migration, which now reaches nearly 50% of the total domestic migration (Boone 2017; Nunn and Wantchekon 2011). However, this does not affect the validity of the hypotheses of the CPRs-driven communal trust and its contrasting effects on political violence. As Nunn and Wantchekon 2011, who investigate the historical origins of mistrust in Africa, suggest, internal norm—trust in neighbors or chiefs—transmit from generation to generation and move with individuals even when they leave from their communities to live in different areas (Algan and Cahuc 2010; Nunn and Wantchekon 2011; Rice and Feldman 1997). Therefore, the average communal trust of people in a district can reflect the CPRs-driven communal trust transmitted from their ancestors.
This article proceeds from the assumption that norms are transmitted intergenerationally, rendering an individual's trust impervious to geographical mobility. This assumption is supported by empirical evidence, as explained in endnote 2. Importantly, this article draws on the conceptual framework outlined in Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) seminal work, “The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa, ” which demonstrates that an individual’s internal norm of mistrust, shaped by the historical experience of the slave trade, persists across generations and remains unaffected by external environmental changes, such as political or institutional alterations, or social interactions induced by migration. Using the same identification strategies employed by Nunn and Wantchekon (2011), Table A3 presents compelling evidence that external factors cannot account for an individual's trust in their traditional leaders. Instead, the study finds that the presence of inland bodies of water in one's historical ethnic homeland serves as a determinant of the current level of trust an individual has in their local chiefs.
In the falsification test in Table A1 of the Online Appendix, it is shown that the reduced-form estimates of water bodies remain robust after using the current location-based recalculation of historically originated variables and the province-fixed effects. However, other geographically endowed conditions related to communal violence such as petroleum sites or national border are no longer statistically significant determinants of conflicts. The results validate that the direct effects of the water bodies of the historical homeland on violence are sufficiently addressed.
The first-stage for the trust in neighbors is statistically significant at the 1% level, although the F-statistics is slightly lower than the rule of thumb for a weak instrument owing to limited coverage of observations (Stock and Yogo 2002).
The militias are paramilitary organizations that are mobilized by chiefs or warlords. The combatants of militias are mostly recruited from non-professional civilians of the community. Many of these identified militias are affiliated with an ethnic or religious group such as the Igbo Ethnic Group in Nigeria, the Islamic state in West Africa, or the Ansaroul Islam in Burkina Faso, but the state military or police force consists of professional soldiers formally recruited by the central government.
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Jung, HR. The Historical Origins of Communal Violence in Africa: Common Pool Resources-Driven Trust and Its Contrasting Effects on Violence. Eur J Dev Res 36, 53–81 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-023-00593-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-023-00593-x