Count Me Out: Political Exclusion in National Censuses

• In Event: Exclusionary Politics: Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement

Abstract

State actors make use of a diverse toolkit when working to exclude a given ethnic or religious group. Typically, scholars have focused on the most visible and violent forms of exclusion, but other, less-violent, more subtle exclusionary practices are also common. Here, I highlight how government statistics have been used to exclude specific groups. Using a new dataset of census enumeration across 250+ countries from 1900-2020, I discuss the strategic inclusion and exclusion of ethnic and religious categories in national head-counts. Comparing census tallies with ethnic and religious self-identification in a large set of surveys, I show how the state’s decision to include (or exclude) certain groups influences the resulting demographic statistics, shaping the way that scholars view the diversity of each country, as well as how individual citizens choose to self-identify.

Author

• Avital Livny, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign