On the Persistent Effects of the Slave Trade on Postcolonial Politics in Africa

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics and History & International History and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics and History

Abstract

How does the disruption of traditional institutions shape modern political outcomes? I argue that the demographic shock to indigenous societies induced by Africa's slave trade influences postcolonial politics by tragically empowering ethnic institutions and leadership, thereby affecting the coup-civil war trap and the underlying commitment problems. The empirical analysis leverages the soil suitability for cassava as an instrument to exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the ethnic group-level exposure to the slave trade. The findings are four-fold: Ethnic groups with greater slave trade exposure are (1) less likely to experience battle incidents within their traditional homelands, (2) less likely to fight civil wars against the central government, (3) more likely to be included in state power-sharing schemes, and (4) more likely to stage coups in postcolonial states. A series of falsification tests exploiting the timing of cassava's arrival in Africa and additional sources of variation lends further credibility to the findings.

Author

• Gaku Ito, Osaka Metropolitan University