Don’t Count Me Out: Exclusion of Ethnic Groups in National Censuses

• In Event: The Politics of Identities

Abstract

State actors use a diverse toolkit when working to exclude ethnic minorities. Typically, scholars focus on the most visible and violent forms of exclusion, but other, less-violent, more subtle exclusionary practices are also common. We highlight how official government statistics are used to exclude specific groups, a
phenomenon we call “enumerative exclusion.” We argue that enumerative exclusion often precedes other, more violent forms of discrimination and violence. Using a new dataset of census enumeration across 250+ countries from 1900-2020,
we identify cases of enumerative exclusion and present descriptive statistics about how enumerative exclusion of ethnic minorities relates to discrimination, violent or otherwise.

Authors

• Abdullah Kabaoglu, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

• Avital Livny, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign