Colonial legacies? Ethno-political exclusion and conflict around the world

• In Event: Historical Legacies of State Capacity, Conflict, and Insurgency

Abstract

This paper disentangles various possible mechanisms and processes how colonial rule could relate to today’s ethno-political conflict. It first shows that colonial legacies—measured with a variety of datasets and focusing on a range of aspects of colonial rule—do not affect whether or not ethnic minorities are represented at national level government, which in turn is a well-known predictor of ethnic civil war. The duration of colonial rule, however, increases the likelihood specifically of secessionist ethnic civil war because peripheral groups used to self-government under empire will resent direct rule by newly independent governments—independent of whether or not they are represented in such government. In other words, colonialism influences contemporary conflict probabilities not because of a legacy of ethno-political inequality, but because peripheral populations are less accustomed to being ruled by a political center.

Author

• Andreas Wimmer, Columbia University