Cash Crops, Print Technologies, and the Politicization of Ethnicity in Africa

Abstract

What are the origins of the ethnic landscapes in contemporary states? Drawing on a preregistered research design, we test the influence of dual socioeconomic revolutions that spread throughout Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—export agriculture and print technologies. We argue these changes transformed ethnicity via their effects on politicization and boundary-making. Print technologies strengthened imagined communities, leading to more salient—yet porous—ethnic identities. Cash crop endowments increased groups’ mobilizational potential but with more exclusionary boundaries to control agricultural rents. Using historical data on cash crops and African language publications, we find that groups exposed to these historical forces are more likely to be politically relevant in the postindependence period, and their members report more salient ethnic identities. We observe heterogenous effects on boundary-making as measured by interethnic marriage; relative to cash crops, printing fostered greater openness to assimilate linguistically related outsiders. Our findings illuminate not only the historical sources of ethnic politicization but also mechanisms shaping boundary formation.

Community‐based legislative representation and postcolonial ethnic civil warfare in former British and French colonies

“…One important characteristic of the EPR dataset is that it only lists ethnic groups that were politically relevant after independence. Considering the general finding that ethnic identities sometimes shift over time in response to institutional or socioeconomic structures (Pengl et al, 2022), it is possible that colonial communal representation at the country and/or group level affected—most likely increased—the probability that an ethnic group is politically relevant and enumerated in the EPR dataset. Expressed differently, those groups that were politically irrelevant after independence and not enumerated by EPR would be relatively unlikely to have received colonial communal representation or been in a colony with communal representation.…”

Ethnic Media and the Mobilization of Identity

“…Finally, ethnic categories are politicized when they overlap with political categories and co-ethnics coordinate their behavior (Huber & Suryanarayan, 2016;Mor, 2022). These processes are theoretically distinct: European missionaries in Africa "made" ethnolinguistic groups without mobilization purposes (Pengl et al, 2022;Posner, 2003;Ranger, 1989), but the political nature of groups later emerged with local conflicts nested in colonial power relations (Mamdani, 2018;Vail & White, 1989). Empirically, however, boundary-making, salience, and politicization happen together and reinforce each other (Pengl et al, 2022), which makes them hardly separable.…”

“…These processes are theoretically distinct: European missionaries in Africa "made" ethnolinguistic groups without mobilization purposes (Pengl et al, 2022;Posner, 2003;Ranger, 1989), but the political nature of groups later emerged with local conflicts nested in colonial power relations (Mamdani, 2018;Vail & White, 1989). Empirically, however, boundary-making, salience, and politicization happen together and reinforce each other (Pengl et al, 2022), which makes them hardly separable. On the one hand, actors who want to mobilize politically around ethnicity need to make it salient for the public, through propaganda or education policy (Balcells, 2013;Eifert et al, 2010); on the other hand, group mobilization also reinforces identity (Lawrence, 2013).…”

“…Mass media are potential catalysts of identity mobilization. Since the changes brought by the printing press on ethnic and national landscapes (Anderson, 2006(Anderson, [1983; Pengl et al, 2022), modern communication technologies have played an important role in the affirmation of collective identities. At different points in time Rwandan media fueled or reduced inter-ethnic prejudice and violence (Blouin & Mukand, 2019;Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014); radio stations in Zambia molded linguistic groups (Posner, 2003); popular media in the United States accelerated immigrant assimilation (Russo, 2020).…”

Mineral Resources and the Salience of Ethnic Identities

“…In theory, which of these identities is the strongest can depend on how close one feels to other members of that identity relative to members of other identities, on the social salience of that identity, or on the payoffs one may expect from that identity (Shayo, 2009). Empirically, strong group identities have thus been associated with either major events affecting the distance between individuals and the salience of certain identity lines -such as an ethnic conflict, or a national sport victory (Rohner et al, 2013;Depetris-Chauvin et al, 2020) -or with the existence of positive group payoffs -such as an ethnic group being historically richer, or ethnic competition in political campaigns (Pengl et al, 2021;Eifert et al, 2010). Our paper contributes to this literature by highlighting how individuals react to a shock which is ethnic-group specific and time-varying.…”