Roads and Regional Favoritism in Sub-Saharan Africa

• In Event: Service Delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

One of the most important topics in the study of the comparative politics of development is where and why governments in poor countries provide public services to some citizens and not others. In Sub-Saharan Africa a major concern is that Presidents disproportionately favor co-ethnics and/or citizens from their home region at the behest of other citizens, thus maintaining and exacerbating poverty and regional inequalities. Previous scholarship on this topic has shown that Presidents favor co-ethnic and co-regional citizens as regards public services and economic development more broadly, and that they do so in order to maintain a group of core political supporters (Ahlerup and Isaksson 2015; Burgess et al. 2015; De Luca et al. 2018; Dickens 2018; Frank and Rainer 2012; Hodler and Raschky 2014; Kramon and Posner 2016).

As such we examine the degree to which regional favoritism exists as regards transport infrastructure within contemporary Africa, specifically as regards the existence of paved roads. Drawing upon data rounds 3-6 of the Afrobarometer from thirteen countries with regime change, we surprisingly find a robust negative relationship between road quality and having a co-district (administrative level 2) President. This relationship exists at the country level for most of the countries in the survey and is robust to a variety of different specifications and sub-samples, including controlling for a co-district Vice President and Minster of Transport. The results hold for non-coethnics of the President within the Presidents’ home districts, but not for co-ethnics outside the Presidents’ home districts.

Qualitative evidence from Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia suggests that Presidents withdraw resources from their home regions and districts in order to curry favor with citizens in other parts of the country. This finding is supported by additional findings of a robust positive correlation between both presidential performance and trust, and a co-district president. These results are consistent with co-regional citizens responding positively to having one of their own elected as president, even though there is no evidence that they are benefiting from his/her presidency. We thus add to evidence from Kasara (2007) and others that regional favoritism can often be negative as well as positive.

Authors

• Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, London School of Economics

• Elliott D. Green, London School of Economics