States of the State
Endogenous Colonial Borders: Precolonial States and Geography in the Partition of Africa
Jack Paine, Xiaoyan Qiu & Joan Ricart-Huguet
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We revise the conventional wisdom that Africa’s international borders were drawn arbitrarily. Europeans knew very little about most of Africa in the mid-1880s, but their self-interested goals of amassing territory prompted intensive examination of on-the-ground conditions as they formed borders. Europeans negotiated with African rulers to secure treaties and to learn about historical state frontiers, which enabled Africans to influence the border-formation process. Major water bodies, which shaped precolonial civilizations and trade, also served as focal points. We find support for these new theoretical implications using two original datasets. Quantitatively, we analyze border-location correlates using grid cells and an original spatial dataset on precolonial states. Qualitatively, we compiled information from treaties and diplomatic histories to code causal process observations for every bilateral border. Historical political frontiers directly affected 62% of all bilateral borders. Water bodies, often major ones, comprised the primary border feature much more frequently than straight lines.
Itinerant Kings
Jacob Hall
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, January 2024
Abstract:
Rather than govern from a fixed capital, medieval kings were itinerant. I argue that itinerant kingship was a coalition-building strategy employed by kings in the face of powerful elite rivals. To empirically explore the political economy underlying itinerant kingship, I introduce novel data on the daily location of the English king from 1199 to 1547. Pairing the itineraries with genealogical network data for feudal barons and the timing of contested elections for bishops, I provide causal evidence that the king's itinerary targets particular key elites to maintain political support. Congruent with my theory, the "military revolution" in the Early Modern period increased the military power of the king relative to the barons, which led to the end of itinerant kingship in Europe.
Pacem in Terris: Are Papal Visits Good News for Human Rights?
Marek Endrich & Jerg Gutmann
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
We analyze the effect of state visits by the Catholic pope on human rights in the host country to understand how a small theocracy like the Vatican can exert disproportionate political influence in international politics. Our theory of the strategic interaction between the Catholic Church and host governments describes how the pope’s use of conditional approval and criticism incentivizes governments to refrain from human rights violations. Drawing on a new dataset of papal state visits outside Italy and a novel identification strategy, we test for the first time whether governments react in anticipation of a papal visit by improving their human rights protection. Our empirical analysis offers robust evidence for this causal effect, which is supported by qualitative evidence.
Building tribes: How administrative units shaped ethnic groups in Africa
Carl Müller-Crepon
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ethnic identities around the world are deeply intertwined with modern statehood, yet the extent to which territorial governance has shaped ethnic groups is empirically unknown. I argue that governments at the national and subnational levels have incentives to bias governance in favor of large groups. The resulting disadvantages for ethnic minorities motivate their assimilation and emigration. Both gradually align ethnic groups with administrative borders. I examine the result of this process at subnational administrative borders across sub-Saharan Africa and use credibly exogenous, straight borders for causal identification. I find substantive increases in the local population share of administrative units' predominant ethnic group at units' borders. Powerful traditional authorities and size advantages of predominant groups increase this effect. Data on minority assimilation and migration show that both drive the shaping of ethnic groups along administrative borders. These results highlight important effects of the territorial organization of modern governance on ethnic groups.
The Factional Logic of Political Protection in Authoritarian Regimes
Duy Trinh
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing literature highlights an authoritarian sanction dilemma: Dictators must deter rent-seeking, yet in doing so they risk antagonizing factional allies. Using a new dataset of disciplinary investigations within the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Party, I show that some dictators navigate this dilemma by tailoring the political protection they provide to their followers. Factional malleability, the extent to which a regime’s factions are formed around mutable personal connections, moderates the choice of protection method. In China, where factions are rigid, factional allies’ defection threat is non-credible. Thus, the dictator offers ex post protection, which is more desirable to him than to his subordinates, by giving delayed, lenient punishments to investigated officials in factionally-connected provinces. In contrast, under Vietnam’s malleable factions, the dictator provides ex ante protection by excluding the same officials from investigations. The findings illuminate how authoritarian regimes with similar formal institutions produce divergent anti-corruption outcomes.
A difficult test for hard propaganda: Evidence from a choice experiment in Venezuela
Philipp Lutscher & Karsten Donnay
Journal of Peace Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Propaganda plays a key role in maintaining power in authoritarian regimes. Previous research finds that overt, crude, and heavy-handed messaging, so-called hard propaganda, can be used to effectively convey government strength and deter citizens from joining anti-regime protests in relatively stable autocratic regimes like China. Yet, it is unclear if this is also true in more contested and unstable autocratic contexts. In these settings, citizens are more likely to question such messaging and prior beliefs of government strength vary more widely. We explore the perception of hard propaganda in one such difficult test case for hard propaganda: the crisis-ridden Maduro regime in Venezuela. We measure perceptions of hard propaganda among the public using an online survey that featured a choice experiment in which respondents chose between and rated different propaganda images against more neutral political communication. Our results show that respondents perceived hard propaganda images as stronger compared to neutral political communication. This holds true -- contrary to our pre-registered expectations -- regardless of whether respondents overall perceived the government as strong or weak. Moreover, respondents reported a lower willingness to join anti-government protests but, at the same time, had a greater motivation to challenge the regime. These results support and extend prior findings on the effectiveness of hard propaganda in deterring anti-regime activities to the case of contested and unstable autocracies. But they also suggest that this kind of messaging erodes regime legitimacy providing the first evidence outside of the Chinese case of the pathology of hard propaganda.
The Sultans of Zanzibar and the Abolition of Slavery in East Africa
Michelle Liebst
Law and History Review, February 2024, Pages 49-74
Abstract:
In 1890, Sultan Ali of Zanzibar declared in writing that “we wish by every means to stop the slave trade.” Statements like these, in addition to the actual passing of anti-slavery legislation, call into question the generally accepted scholarly understanding that the sultans of Zanzibar only agreed to pass and enforce anti-slavery legislation because they were under duress from European, mainly British, powers, who negotiated favorable political and economic benefits in return for (gradual) abolition. A close analysis of the sources tells a more complicated story of both collaboration and conflict between the Zanzibari sultans, their subjects, and the British agents. Moreover, each sultan had distinctive political and religious beliefs, as well as individual personal experiences and outlooks. This paper explores the anti-slavery legislation passed under three sultans of Zanzibar: Barghash bin Said (1870–1888) who prohibited the transport of slaves by sea in 1873, Ali bin Said (1890–1893) who passed the Slave Trade Prohibition Decree of 1890, and Hamoud bin Mohammed (1896–1902) who passed the Abolition Decree of 1897. By analyzing draft treaties and correspondence before and after the passing of legislation, this paper argues that the sultans and their advisors were not devoid of ideological interest in ending slavery; and that British agents and explorers in the region were too hastily hailed as abolitionists.
The Pigmentocracy of Executive Approval
Shane Singh & Ryan Carlin
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
We advance a theory of pigmentocratic executive approval that accounts for both skin color-based group attachments and deviations in skin tone between citizens and leaders. We argue that such deviations will decrease approval most strongly for those lighter in complexion than the incumbent. We further argue that individuals will most strongly punish incumbents for poor economic performance when their skin tone is lighter than the executive’s. To test our theory, we assess the skin tone of dozens of leaders from the Americas, and we couple the resulting measure with mass survey data from the leaders’ countries. Our findings demonstrate that executive approval throughout the Americas replicates patterns of “pigmentocracy” -- inequalities and hierarchies that privilege lighter skin tones.
Shaping states into nations: The effects of ethnic geography on state borders
Carl Müller-Crepon, Guy Schvitz & Lars-Erik Cederman
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Borders define states, yet little systematic evidence explains where they are drawn. Putting current challenges to state borders into perspective and breaking new methodological ground, this paper analyzes how ethnic geography and nationalism have shaped European borders since the 19th century. We argue that nationalism creates pressures to redraw political borders along ethnic lines, ultimately making states more congruent with ethnic groups. We introduce a Probabilistic Spatial Partition Model to test this argument, modeling state territories as partitions of a planar spatial graph. Using new data on Europe's ethnic geography since 1855, we find that ethnic boundaries increase the conditional probability that two locations they separate are, or will become, divided by a state border. Secession is an important mechanism driving this result. Similar dynamics characterize border change in Asia but not in Africa and the Americas. Our results highlight the endogenous formation of nation-states in Europe and beyond.
Farming then fighting: Agricultural idle time and armed conflict
Matthew DiGiuseppe, Roos Haer & Babak RezaeeDaryakenari
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Policymakers and scholars have long proposed that willingness to participate in armed conflict is influenced by citizens' income-earning opportunities. Testing this opportunity cost mechanism has led to mixed results. One reason for this might be the fact that current proxies can also serve as indicators to test grievance-based theories. In this study, we construct a more suitable measure. We use crop calendars and crop location data to build an index of agricultural idle time for first administration units on the African continent from 1990 to 2017. We test the explanatory power of this measure by examining its relationship with armed conflict. Our results show that agricultural idle time increases the probability of observing armed conflict by more than 20 percent.