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Comparat ive Democrat izat ionVolume 12, No. 1 March 2014

The Ame r i c an Po l i t i c a l Sc i ence Assoc i a t i o n

Editorial Board NoteBenjamin Smith and Staffan I.Lindberg

Colonialism and Democratization Matthew D. Fails and JonathanKrieckhaus

Trends in Within-Legacyand Cross-Legacy Analysis ofDemocracy and DevelopmentTomila Lankina

Colonialism, Development, andDemocratizationOlukunle P. Owolabi

Looking Beyond the UsualSuspects: Integrating ReligiousActors into the Study ofDemocratization and EconomicDevelopmentRobert D. Woodberry

Section News

New Research

Editorial Committee

COLONIALISM AN D DEMOCRATIZATION

F ew topics have dominated comparative politics so thoroughly as thestudy of democratization. In this vast literature, most prominent isLipset’s (1959) hypothesis that democracy is sustained primarily byhigh levels of per capita income.1 Despite ongoing debate as to why this relationshipexists, as well as related debates as to whether it is income per se that matters or insteadits close correlates (including literacy, urbanization, inequality, and class dynamics), there

nonetheless exists a broad consensus that democratiza tion is rooted in the domestic procesof economic modernization.

Huntington’s (1991) identification of the Third Wave of democracy led to a theoretical re-evaluation of this domestic-centric approach. He and others emphasized that internationaactors, such as the United States, the Catholic Church, and the U.S.S.R, and internationaprocesses, such as the diffusion of democracy between neighboring countries, also shapecontemporary regime outcomes. In the last two decades this new international perspectivehas been elaborated in a variety of important studies that emphasiz e diverse factors such asthe end of the Cold War and the subsequent ability of foreign aid conditionality to promote1. A complete bibliography for all citations included in this essay is available on both authors’ websites (https://sites.google.com/a/oakland.edu/mfails/ and http://web.missouri.edu/~krieckhausj/).

Matthew D. Fails, Oakland University Jonathan Kr iec khaus, University of Missouri

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TRENDS IN W ITH IN-L EGACY AND C ROSS-LEGACY A NALYSIS OF DEMOCRACY AN D DEVELOPMENT Tomila Lankina, London School of Economics and Political Science

T he historical turn in comparative politics research on democracy anddevelopment is a welcome departure from earlier analytical paradigmsfocusing on temporally proximate causes. In this essay I highlight three keyemerging and inter-related analytical strategies to deal with the methodologically thornyquestion of the persistence of history: a tendency to employ sub-national localities as units

of observation; a shift from a focus in ear lier studies on political-economic institutions andonto societal variables like human and cultural capital; and the bridging of geographicalspecialisms to pursue what I term “cross-legacy” comparisons. Based on my own comparativehistorical research on the legacies of colonialism and empire in developing and post-communist states, throughout the essay, I illustrate the utility, but also the challenges, ofthese analy tical approaches.

Over the last two decades, a rich body of empirical scholarship has emerged employing thesub-national comparative research method. The merits of this approach are particularlyevident when applied to studies of historical legacy effects to explain what came to be


“Colonial Legaciesand Democracy”

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is is the penultimate issueof APSA-CD under theeditorship of the comparativecohort at the University

Florida’s Department ofPolitical Science, and forStaffan I. Lindberg and meas lead editors followingMichael Bernhard’s tenure. Ithas been a great pleasure anda real privilege for all of us onthe editorial team to solicit, toread, and to publish so much

work of such high quality overthe last 4 years. is issue is

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C om p a r a t i v e D em o c r a t i z a t i o nVol. 12 No. 1 March 20

Articles

COLONIALISM, DEVELOPMENT AN D D EMOCRATIZATION: BEYOND N ATI ON AL C OLONIAL L EGACIES

During the past decade, there has been a proliferation of empirical literature examining the long-termdevelopmental and political consequences of colonialism. In contrast to earlier scholarship, which focused

primarily on national colonial legacies (e.g. British vs. French or Spanish rule), recent scholarship hasincreasingly focused on how different economic models (e.g. settler vs. extractive colonization), administrative frameworks(e.g. direct vs. indirect rule) and state-society relations have affected long-term development and postcolonial democracy.

Thi s essay reviews this recent shift in empir ical lit eratu re on colon ialism, development, and democratization. Although thisnewsletter primarily focuses on comparative democratization, it is also important to address the consequences of colonial rulefor socio-economic development, given that this is an important mechanism through which colonial institutions have shapedpostcolonial regime outcomes. At present, development economics and sociology are more advanced than political sciencein exploring the long-term consequences of colonialism, although various theoretical and conceptual advances from theserelated disciplines can arguably be applied to comparative political research on democratization. By bridging the knowledgegap across the various social science d isciplines, one may be able to draw additional insights on the complex interplay betweendevelopment and democracy, which remains one of the enduring questions in political science.

The remainder o f this essay will proceed as follows : First, I outline the major contributions of empir ical lit erature examiningthe consequences of British rule for long-term development and postcolonial democracy. Recognizing the shortcomingof this literature, I review some of the recent scholarship investigating how distinct colonial institutions and actors (e.gsettler vs. extractive colonization; direct vs. indirect rule; and colonial missionaries) have affected long-term developmentand postcolonial democracy. Building on the contributions of these studies, I conclude by outlining some avenues for futurecomparative research on colonialism, development and democratization.

Olukunle P. Owolabi, Villanova University

LOOKING BEYOND THE USUAL SUSPECTS: INTEGRATING R ELIGIOUS A CTORS INTO THE

S TUDY OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND E CONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

A consensus has developed among many social scientists that colonial and pre-colonial institutionsprofoundly shaped societies’ prospects for both economic development and democratization. The questionis no longer whether history matters, but why and how it matters. For example, controlling for Britishcolonialism is virtually obligatory in cross-national analyses. Recent work attempts to measure legal institutions

economic inequality, land-tenure systems, civil society and other endogenous factors that were often transformed during theEuropean colonial period. However, most research primarily demonstrates that s tatistical associations exist and may be causalLess work analyzes carefully why some societies developed less inequality or greater protection for private property or whoactually set up the schools and promoted lega l protections.

One factor that scholars have almost completely ignored until recently is Protestant and Catholic missionaries . Yet, they werecrucial catalysts of change. Colonizers varied in terms of educa tional enrollment, but missionaries provided the vast majorityof educational institutions. Colonizers varied in the extent of printing, but missionaries generally created the first vernacularfonts, printed the first vernacular newspapers and books, and taught the first local printers their skills. Colonizers variedregarding the time when they banned slavery and in the extent to which they applied European legal standards to non-whitesbut religious groups were generally the main promoters of colonial reform movements. In addition, the threat of conversionspurred local elites to emulate missionary education, printing, and civil society, creating a competitive expansion of resourcesavailable to new elites and non-elites. Thus, future research should include missionaries in its historical and statisticalanalyses. While the spread and activities of missionaries is not exogenous and must be explained, neither i s the spread and

Robert D. Woodberry, National University of Singapore

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Editors

F ROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD, CONTINUED

no exception to that: it brings together a setof notable scholars of the impact of colonial

legacies on democratization and democraticlongevity to confront the bearing of thepast.

We feel confident that the readers will gainmuch from this issue, tackle as it does ina systematic way the influence of variousaspects of the colonial era on democraticpolitics today. Matthew Fails and JonathanKrieckhaus revisit the classic requisites ofdemocracy, highlighting how often they are

endogenous to longer-range social dynamicscatalyzed by colonial rule. Tomila Lankinapushes scholars of legacies both to beattentive to sub-national research strategies

and to recognize the theoretical gains to bemade in cross-legacy research on democracy.

Olukunle Owolabi focuses our attention onthe causal importance of different modes ofcolonial rule and of different colonial-eraactors in creating long-range political andsocial trajectories. And Robert Woodberryfocuses on one set of colonial actors inparticular—conversionary Protestantmissionaries—in indirectly creating somecrucial preconditions for the establishmentof, and long-term viability of, stable liberaldemocratic politics. In short, these essays

nicely illustrate a growing vein of researchon the historical lineages of contemporarydemocracy and the increasing sophistication

with which we as a discipline have begun to

engage the role of history.

Finally, we owe specialthanks to Emily Hauser, aPhD candidate in politicalscience here at UF, whose own interest inthe colonial determinants of democracytoday motivated this issue. Emily’s hard

work in organizing and bringing to fruitionthese essays is much appreciated, as is thecontribution that our set of authors hasmade both to our newsletter and to thestudy of comparative democratization.

- Staffan I. Lindberg and Benjamin Smith

Fails and Krieckhaus, CONTINUED

democratization (Dunning 2004), theimpact of dense linkage networks with

Western democracies (Levitsky and Way2005), and the tendency of neighboringcountries to converge toward similarregime types (Brinks and Coppedge2006) to name only a few.

In this essay we push this focus oninternational factors further, arguingthat Great Power politics generally, andcolonialism especially, is the root causeof democracy’s global proliferation. In

making this argument we bring to theattention of democratization scholarsa recent, vibrant, and interdisciplinarybody of research that shows howthe international system and era ofoverseas colonialism was fundamentallyresponsible for the “making of themodern world.”2 Although relativelyfew of these studies focus directly on

2. is is the subtitle of Acemoglu, Johnson, andRobinson (2002), perhaps the authors most closelyassociated with this literature.

the process of democratization, wenonetheless contend that taken as a

whole thi s emerging research areasuggests that colonialism has decisivelyshaped long-run global democratization.

We articulate this argument by makingtwo distinct points. First, we introducean international relations perspectiveto democratization studies by notingthat a democratic hegemon is necessaryfor the global expansion of democracy.Second, we turn to a series of important

domestic variables in democratizationstudies, including income per capita,human capital, inequality, and socialcohesion, and argue that these widelyaccepted and seemingly ‘exogenous’causes of democratization are largely abyproduct of the way in which Europeancolonialism differentially shaped statesand societies throughout the globalperiphery.

I. The International System, Anglo-

Ame rican Primac y, and the Origins of

Global Democratization Whereas “mos t scholars assume thatexternal factors became importantonly in the 1970s or 1980s, at whichpoint democracy was well establishedin the West,” (Narizny 2012: 342), wenote that international actors drovedemocratization much earlier andmore fundamentally than commonlythought. To begin with, at a high levelof generality, we invoke two recent

studies showing that the presence of ademocratic hegemon in the interna tionalsystem accounts for nearly all successfuldemocratization episodes in the modernera, and is in fact a necessary conditionfor the global proliferation of democracy

Boix (2011), for instance, draws ona dataset reaching back to the early1800s and provides quantitativeevidence of an important conditional

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relationship between modernizationand democratization. Specifically,income per capita has a much strongereffect on democratization andconsolidation during eras in which

democratic hegemons controlled theinternational system. When democraticregimes such as Britain or the UnitedStates have dominated the globe, theproliferation of democracies proceededapace, but when authoritarian regimessuch as the Holy Alliance dominate theinternational system, democratizationis less common, even when domesticmodernization conditions a re favorable.

Narizny (2012) utilizes counter-factual reasoning and historicalevidence to argue even more forciblythat international actors are decisive.

Two empirical fac ts are centr al toNarizny’s argument. First, the main

waves of democracy essenti al lyfollowed hegemonic wars in which thedemocratic power at the apex of theinternational system was victorious,including Britain’s military victoryin World War I, the British and U.S.

vic tor y in Wor ld War I I, and the vic tor yof the U.S. over the (authoritarian)USSR in the late twentieth century.Second, the majority of all consolidateddemocracies began life under the director indirect influence of the Anglo-American democratic hegemons. Thesepatterns underpin his “genealogical”explanation of democratization, wherefounding states reproduced their social,economic, and political institutions in

the territories they control. As Nariznystrikingly concludes, “Great Britain andthe United States have played a key rolein creating, maintaining, or revivingdemocracy in nearly every state at thecore of the current international order ”(p.342).

Considered together, these studiessuggest that international actors are notmerely a recent additional explanation

for democratization, but ratherconstitute the essential geopoliticalfoundation for global democratization.

II. Economic Modernization

While articulating the impor tance ofGreat Powers politics, Boix and Nariznynonetheless endorse the conclusionof countless democratization studies,namely the propensity of a highlevel of income per capita to createand consolidate democratic regimes.Indeed, one of the most prominentdebates in recent years concerns notwhether income levels correlate withdemocracy, but rather why , with the

principle debate concerning whethermodernization increases the likelihoodof transition to democracy or merelystabilizes democratic regimes thatemerged for myriad other reasons(e.g. Przeworski and Limongi 1997;Przeworski et al. 2000; Boix and Stokes2003; Epstein et al. 2006). Gassebner etal.’s (2013) extreme bounds analysis ofdemocratic transition and democraticsurvival suggests that both versionshold some grain of truth.

Precise causal mechanisms aside, it is nowconventional wisdom that income percapita sustains democracy. We thereforesuggest that the scholarly communitybriefly reflect on where higher incomescome from, and whether these deepercauses might shed additional light onthe determinants and spread of globaldemocracy. After all, whatever it isthat brought about such a fundamental

social transformation as economicdevelopment may be sufficientlyimportant that it wields independenteffects on democratization.

To understand the origins ofcontemporary incomes, we invokea recent conventional wisdom ineconomics which views currentincome levels around the globe as abyproduct of European colonialism.

Thi s view originates with Acemoglu Johnson, and Robinson’s (20012002) highly influential argumentthat European colonialism unfoldedin varying fashions across the

developing world, driven principallyby the environmental conditions thatcolonists encountered when theyarrived. Unfavorable conditions, suchas dense indigenous populations andhostile disease environments, providedincentives for colonists to rule throughextractive institutions, ranging fromthe encomienda system of ownershipin Latin America to the establishmentof authoritarian and absolutist states

designed to extract cash crops in Afr icaBy contrast, more favorable conditionsfacilitated colonial settlement andthe transplantation of Europeaninstitutions that would prove favorablefor long-run development, includingsystems of strong property rights.

Acemoglu et al.’s vision has certainlybeen contested, such as Albouy’s(2012) critique of their dataset. Butmost critics merely dispute their causamechanism, rather than the generalpoint that European colonialismdrove contemporary incomes. Glaeseret al. (2004), for instance, provideevidence that human capital is anequally plausible intervening processOur own work (Fails and Krieckhaus2010) bifurcates the Acemoglu et althesis, in that we strongly endorse thei

vis ion in six unusual colonies whereBritish settlement or capital investmen

transformed the territory, but we arguethat outside of these six cases thereis little evidence that property rightsis an intervening variable betweencolonialism and contemporary incomeper capita.3 3. More generally, Lange et al. (2006) argue thatgreater levels of British colonialism is positivelyassociated with long-run development in ex-colonies

whereas greater levels of Spanish colonialism isassociated with less development. For a recentdiscussion of British colonialism and democracy, seeLankina and Getachew (2012).

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Serious debate continues as to the causalmechanisms at play, but in general thereis now a broad sense that the globalincome distribution has “Europeanorigins” (Easterly and Levine 2012).

In political science, book-lengthtreatments show how colonialismpowerfully shaped states and societies,and hence long-run development(e.g., Kohli 2004, Krieckhaus 2006,Mahoney 2010). In economics, Morckand Yeung (2011) highlight the extentto which the discipline now embraceshistory, and colonialism specifically,as an explanatory variable. In light ofthese recent literatures, one might say

that the entire body of democratizationresearch emphasizing modernization,from Lipset onward, has focused on anintervening variable between the era ofcolonialism and contemporary regimeoutcomes, rather than an exogenouscause in and of itself.

III. Human Capital and Education

Lipset’s (1959) original work notonly identified GDP per capita as themaster variable sustaining democracybut also noted that income is closelycorrelated with other social, political,and economic attributes, some of whichmight have independent effects ondemocracy. Lipset paid special attentionto education, arguing that “educationpresumably broadens men’s outlooks,enables them to understand the needfor norms of tolerance, restrains themfrom adhering to extremist and monistdoctrines, and increases their capacity

to make rational electoral choices”(p.79).

Interestingly, this focus on education isalso echoed in the recent literature oncolonialism. As noted above, Glaeser etal. (2004) modify Acemoglu, Johnson,and Robinson’s (2001) model of colonialsettlement and extraction and arguethat what matters is not the extent to

which settl ers brought ins titutions of

private property but instead brought“themse lves, that is, their human capita l”(274). While their goal is to providean alternative explanation of long-rundevelopment, for our purposes here, the

more interesting point is that Glaeseret al. provide compelling empiricalevidence that colonialism ushered insweeping changes to the makeup ofsocieties, which sowed the seeds ofthe literate, educated citizenries thatsustain democracy.

In their previous work, two of the othercontributors to this symposium furtherelaborate the nexus between colonialism,

education, and democratization. Bothauthors also adopt a broader perspectiveon the colonial era, highlighting therole of missionar y activities. Woodberry(2012), for instance, argues that theexpansion of conversionary protestantmissionaries provides the basis forkey structural changes in colonizedsocieties, including the development ofmass education, widespread printing,and rising rates of literacy. Drawing onan impressive array of original data onthe presence and timing of missionaryactivities, Woodberry demonstratesthat this process provides a superioraccount of contemporary levels ofdemocracy, even after controlling forstandard predictors and alternativecolonial-based arguments.

In a nice complement to this globalanalysis, Lankina and Getachew(2012) focus on sub-national variation

in India and build original district-level datasets on historical Christianmissionary activity, literacy, andmeasures of democratic participationand competition. Their mixed methodempirical approach demonstrates thatcolonial-era mission activity had astrong influence on human capital,

which itself explains variations instate-level democracy. By highlightingthe variations within a single colonial

territory, the authors further emphasizethe causal importance of colonialism –albeit a religious dimension – in termsof education and democratization.

IV. Social CleavagesSpace constraints prevent us fromoffering a full discussion of otherprominent factors in democratizationstudies, and their colonial antecedentsbut we offer some brief commentsFirst, income inequality – the lynchpinof several influential theories ofdemocratization (e.g. Boix 2003Acemoglu and Robinson 2006Ansell and Samuels 2010) – has

also been profoundly shaped by thecolonial era. Angeles (2007) notesa U-shaped relationship betweencolonial settlement and contemporaryincome inequality. Low Europeansettlement was too small to shapeincome distributions, while Europeanpredominance led to the decimation ofnative populations and, accompanied byabundant land, a relatively egalitariandistribution of income. It is intermediatEuropean settlement, when Europeansettlers constituted a considerable butminority share of the population, asin Latin America, that colonists usedtheir economic and political powerto appropriate the best resourcesand establish a legacy of persistentlyhigh inequality. Van de Walle (2009)highlights an alternative channel by

which colonialism shaped incomeinequality, namely how the limitedambitions of the colonial state in sub-

Saharan Africa led to independentstates dominated by narrow governingclasses and reliance on clientelism, bothfeatures that prevented the emergenceof more equitable income distributions

Second, there is growing evidencethat colonialism – broadly defined– influenced patterns of sociaidentification and individual attitudes

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Nunn (2008) shows how variationsin the Atlantic Slave Trade accountfor differing levels of ethnicfractionalization across Africa; greaterslave trade activity tended to weaken

inter-village cooperation and dampenthe development of larger communaland ethnic identities. In related

work, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011)show that the same process led tolong-lasting cultural shifts, wherebycontemporary citizens whose ancestors

were victims of the slave trade are lesstrusting of fellow citizens, relatives,and local governments. While focusedonly on Africa, the authors nonetheless

provide an important argument onthe origins of inter-personal trust, anindividual attitude which has beenregularly linked to democratization (i.e.Inglehart 1997).

One important objection to our entireline of reasoning is that by highlightingthe colonial roots of such variables,

we have excluded any potentia l causalimportance for factors within colonizedterritories, or more generally, have

taken a position whereby all historyis internationally determined. We donot endorse such an approach, and toclarify this point we note a variety ofstudies highlighting how domesticfactors also influenced the behaviorof colonists. Engermann and Sokoloff(2012), for instance, highlight howfactor endowments, such as thesuitability of land to the production oflabor-intensive crops like sugar, shaped

contemporary inequality, as colonistsin such territories were more likely torely on plantation agriculture, slavelabor, and institutional frameworksthat preserved economic and politicalinequalities over the long run. Gerringet al. (2011) and Hariri (2012) makerelated arguments, focusing on howthe domestic attributes of potentialcolonies, including the strength ofpre-colonial state institutions, can

alter (and in some cases prevent) thediffusion of democratic institutions bygreat powers. While these argumentsgive some causal primacy to classicexogenous characteristics, including

geography or the development of earlystates, each still fits squarely with ouroverall thesis on the importance of theinternational system for contemporarydemocratization outcomes. IV. Implications

We have argued that the global expansionof democratic regimes, one of the mostimportant transformations in worldpolitics today, is inextricably linked

to an earlier transformation of worldpolitics, namely the era of Great PowerPolitics and the construction of colonialempires. Considered most broadly ouraim for this essay is to alert scholarsof democratization to the growingliterature that underlies this claim,and to challenge such scholars to takethe colonial origins of democracy anddictatorship seriously. At minimum, wesuggest that democratization scholarsreflect on Huntington’s methodological

observation that “an explanation… isthe place at which the mind comes torest” (1991: 36). History is a chain ofcause-and-effect, such that when weexplain social science phenomena, wecan peel back layers of causa tion like anonion. Democratization scholars havetraditionally utilized variables such asincome, human capital, inequality, andsocial identity as a set of explanationsfor the rise of democracy. If one peels

away another layer, however, one findsthat all of these variables are heavilystructured by the deeper forces ofAnglo-American hegemony and the

way in which European colonialismshaped territories throughout the globalperiphery. Domestic explanationsshould be seen as operating within thislarger geopolitical context.

Thi s is not merely a matte r of

recognizing the European roots ofdemocratization, but also a matter ofre-thinking the causal process through

which income and its cor relates affectdemocracy. Compare, for instance

Lipset’s (1959) understanding ofeducation in democratization versus

Woodberry’s (2012) explanationLipset provides little insight into

why education and democracy arecorrelated, save for speculation thatdemocracy might generate “normsof tolerance” and reduce “extremism”(p.79). Woodberry, by contra st, providesa much more political and activistunderstanding of education, in which

protestant missionaries actively soughtto recruit citizens to their world viewand this led to a competitive strugglefor people’s minds with existing elitesIn this sense, education is part of aChristian mobilizing ethos, and isinherently a political process.

Reconsidering other ‘independent variables’ from thi s colonial perspectivemay lead scholars to similarly novelunderstandings of the causal processes

at work. Is GDP per capita merely amechanism to reduce class conflictand increase education, or is itperhaps reflective of a more generalEuropeanization of colonized lands

where Briti sh settl ers simultaneouslybrought with them multi-facetedideologies of property rights, consentof the governed, and human capital? Inthe latter conception, it is not exactlythat wealth causes democracy but

rather that British settlement generatesa vast complex of transformationsContemporary democratization, to aconsiderable extent, is the outcome ofthis colonially-induced transformation

Matthew Fail s is an assis tant professor of

pol it ical science at Oakland University

Jonathan Krieckhaus is an associate

profess or of pol itical science at th

University of Missouri.



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known as the “great divergence” indevelopmental and democratic variationamong nations. Earlier theorizingby Seymour Martin Lipset, LarryDiamond, Juan Linz, Myron Weiner,

and other scholars suggested thatcolonial power identity may exercisean institutional path-dependency effecton the modernization and politicalregime pathways of post-colonialnations. These conjectures in turn ledto the burgeoning of large-n studiesincorporating colonial tutelage effects.

Yet, even the most cursory familiar ity with the his tor ical experiences ofcolonized nations would suffice to

problematize such forms of coloniallegacy aggregation. Colonia l author ity,after all, did not straightforwardlymap onto territories of modern nationstates . Furthermore, local “shades”of colonialism also varied, with manyterritories even within the domainof one colonial power representingpatchwork quilts of often ad hocinstitutional arrangements—nativeinstitutional adaptations or external

impositions.

1

1. Larry Diamond, “Introduction: Persistence,Erosion, Breakdown, and Renewal,” in LarryDiamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour MartinLipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989): 1-52; SeymourMartin Lipset, Kyoung-Ryung Seong, and JohnCharles Torres, “A Comparative Analysis of theSocial Requisites of Democracy,” International SocialScience Journal 45 (May 1993): 155-75; Myron

Weiner and Ergun Özbudun, eds.,Competitive Elections in Developing Countries (Durham: AEI/

Duke, 1987). For examples of cross-national studies,see Zehra F. Arat, Democracy and Human Rightsin Developing Countries (Boulder: Lynne Rienner,1991); Michael Bernhard, Christopher Reenock,and Timothy Nordstrom, “e Legacy of WesternOverseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival,”

International Studies Quarterly 48 (March 2004):225-50; Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, JoseAntonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, Democracyand Development: Political Institutions and Well-Beingin the World, 1950-1990 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000). For a discussion of the meritsof the sub-national approach, see Richard Snyder,“Scaling Down: e Subnational ComparativeMethod,” Studies in Comparative InternationalDevelopment 36 (Spring 2001): 93-110.

Because of the within-nation variationin the institutions that colonial rulersimposed or adapted in the colonies,generalizations derived from employingthe “identity of the colonial power”

analytical label are not appropriate forour understanding of the often variednature of national and sub-nationalpost-colonial pathways. A numberof recent studies have analyzed theimplications of the spatial diversity ofcolonial administrative configurationsor institutional and governancepreferences for the persistence oflocal developmental and democraticdisparities.2 Yet these within-nation

comparative studies in politics andpolitical economy go much furtherthan shedding light on the linksbetween these spatially uneven coloniallegacies and within-nation inequalities.Rather, they have helped generateinsights for our understanding ofthe puzzle of the persistence of cross-national developmental and regimeconstellations as they relate to theeffects of various types of institutions,

practices, and actors, hithertosubsumed under the “colonial origin”rubric. For instance, sub-nationalanalysis has enabled scholars to moresystematically unpack and deconstructthe generic label of “colonial tutelage”and conceptually distinguish betweenChristian missionaries and colonialauthorities; to highlight differenttypes of land tenure practiced inthe colonies as important variablesshaping infrastructural development,

schooling, and healthcare; and identifythe significance of local governancearrangements set up by western rulers

2. Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer, “History,Institutions, and Economic Performance: e Legacyof Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India,” e

American Economic Review 95 (September 2005):1190-213; Latika Chaudhary, “Land Revenues,Schools, and Literacy: A Historical Examination ofPublic and Private Funding of Education,” Indian

Economic and Social History Review 47 (April/ June 2010): 179–204; Melissa Dell, “e MiningMita: Explaining Institutional Persistence in Peru,”Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008.

for altering or reinforcing indigenoussocial control mechanisms andinequalities. I discuss this researchagenda and its implications forexplaining cross-national variations in

the developmental pathways of nations with a variety of historical legacies, withreference to my own and other scholars

work, in more detail below.

The second, paradigmatic, changein historical legacies research is ashift of emphasis from political-economic institutions onto the societaunderpinnings of long-run democracyand development. Let me pursue

further the example of colonial legacies There is a long tradition of theorizinginto the ostensibly democracy-boostingnature of British colonial institutionalegacies—most notably Westminster-style parliamentary systems that theBritish set up in the colonies; thesearguably favorably contrasted with theinstitutional legacies of the FrenchSpanish, Dutch, and Portuguese coloniapowers. The premise that colonia

political-legal institutional legacies areengines of the reproduction of patternof global divergence in democracy anddevelopment is also present in therecent widely cited work by DaronAcemoglu, Simon Johnson, and JamesRobinson (AJR). AJR employ settlermortality to instrument for institutionsuch as checks on government thatEuropeans introduced or neglected tointroduce depending on whether theydecided to settle in the various colonies

The insti tutionalis t paradigmdominating the “great divergence”scholarship came under attack in apaper by Edward L. Glaeser, RafaeLa Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanesand Andrei Shleifer.3 Glaeser et al

3. For institutional scholarship on colonial legacies,see David B. Abernethy, e Dynamics of GlobalDominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000);Diamond, Democracy in Developing Countries ; Weiner

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helped problematize the assumption ofinstitutional drivers of the reproductionof historical legacy effects advancedin the seminal work of AJR, and,by implication, in other scholarship

focusing on political-legal frameworksat the expense of societal variables

which might be plausibly linked tothe reproduction of patterns of globalregime and developmental variations.One such variable is human capital, whatGlaeser at al. call the “know-how,” ofthose who chose to settle in the variousterritories, or the “ know-how” and skillsof indigenous populations that colonialpowers nurtured or undermined; it

is this variable that colonial tutelagemay well have captured, rather thaninstitutions.

The research that I have conducted with my collaborator Lullit Getachewinto the links between coloniallegacies and sub-national democraticgovernance across India’s districtsillustrates the importance of thehuman capital dimension in analyzing

the persistence of history in spaceand time. In particular, we find thatcolonial-era literacy, female literacyin particular, is a significant predictorof post-colonial literacy and state-level democratic variation. Whetherthe various localities were directly orindirectly ruled by the British appearsto have discernable effects only onmale, but not female, literacy. Whatmattered more for human capitaldevelopment, we find, is the presence

of another set of colonial and indeedpre-colonial era actors—Christian

Competitive Elections; Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, “e ColonialOrigins of Comparative Development: An EmpiricalInvestigation,” e American Economic Review 91(December 2001): 1369-401; Daron Acemoglu,Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, “Reversal ofFortune: Geography and Institutions in the Makingof the Modern World Income,” e Quarterly Journalof Economics 117 (November 2002): 1231-94. Fora critique, see Edward L. Glaeser, Rafael La Porta,Florencio Lopez-De-Silanez, and Andrei Shleifer,“Do Institutions Cause Growth?” Journal of Economic

Growth 9 (September 2004): 271-303.

missionaries, Protestant missionaries inparticular—whom we distinguish fromcolonial authorities, and who have hadprofound effects on the developmentof literacy; the inter-generational

transmission of literacy through familyand church Bible readings; and thenurturing and reproduction of cultural

values associated with democracy. Oursub-national methodological strategyenabled us to distinguish betweenmissionary and colonial power effects;

yet we did not possess cross-nationaldata to more rigorously interrogatethe widespread assumption thatnational -level government institutions

introduced by colonial powersare key drivers of democratic anddevelopmental variations among post-colonial nations. This is accomplishedin Robert Woodberry’s masterfulcross-national analysis of colonial-era Protestant missionary activity.

Woodberry’s research supports ourfinding of the powerful human capitalcomponent of Christian missionaryinvolvement in the colonies; these

effects may well have been erroneouslyattributed to colonial institutions inprevious scholarship.4

Recent literature on the implicationsof pre-communist historical legaciesfor post-communist states’ democraticpathways likewise illustrates a shift inthe analytical perspective away frominstitutional legacies—such as thoserelated to the experience of having aparticular bureaucratic tradition or

exposure to Roman law—and ontothe societal-cultural drivers of thepersistence of history. This tendency

4. Tomila Lankina and Lullit Getachew,“Competitive Religious Entrepreneurs: ChristianMissionaries and Female Education in Colonialand Post-Colonial India,” British Journal of PoliticalScience 43 (January 2012); Tomila Lankina and LullitGetachew, “Mission or Empire, Word or Sword? eHuman Capital Legacy in Post-Colonial DemocraticDevelopment,” American Journal of Political Science56 (April 2012): 465-83; Robert D. Woodberry, “eMissionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” American

Political Science Review 106 (May 2012): 244-74.

is evident even in studies framed ininstitutional legacy terms, but whichessentially point to the human capitaldimension of the reproduction ofhistorical legacy effects over time. Fo

instance, in explaining the apparentlinks between pre-communist legaciesand support for communist parties inthe post-communist period amongformerly socialist states, Keith Dardenand Anna Grzymala-Busse highlight theimportance of Imperial-era curriculumand literacy. In turn, they link theeducation variables to the institutionafactor of sub-national cultural autonomyin the various imperial peripheries

Imperial-era cultural autonomyand advanced native schooling werearguably instrumental in helping tosustain anti-communist values in thecommunist period. My own researchinto the historical drivers of democratic

variation in post-communis t Russia’sregions likewise suggests that imperialiteracy patterns help explain longterm modernization. I find that even

within the adminis tra tive boundaries

of present-day Russia—including inoverwhelmingly ethnically Russianareas—imperial era literacy continues tocorrelate strongly with post-communisregional modernization patterns. Inmost territories that are part of present-day Russia, the cultural autonomycurriculum, and nationalism factors

were not relevant to the same extent asthey had been in imperia l Russia’s area

with non-Russian minor ity populationthat had relatively wide autonomy.5. Keith Darden and Anna Grzymala-Busse,“e Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and theCommunist Collapse,” World Politics 59 (October2006): 83-115. For a discussion of institutionallegacies such as a bureaucratic tradition or exposureto Roman law, see Jon Elster, Claus Offe, andUlrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfedova, RadoslawMarkowski, and Gabor Toka, Post-Communist PartySystems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-PartyCooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999). For a discussion of the links betweenimperial literacy and post-communist modernization

at a sub-national level in Russia, see Tomila Lankina,

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What we are likel y observing thereforeis not the effects of past institutions ofcultural autonomy and schooling witha national content, but, more generally,evidence of the spatial reproduction

of human capital, which is in turnan important driver of democratic

variation in post-communist settings.

Admittedly, the institutions and humancapital variables are interrelated—thelatter could be also conceptualizedas a product of formal and informalsocietal institutions. The analyticaldistinction is nevertheless a useful one.Consider the universe of cases that

had experienced institutional rupturebetween the past and newly establishedorders at the onset of communism. If weare observing patterns of reproductionof, say, higher levels of development orbetter quality democratic governance insome territories over others forty yearsafter the imposition of the communistexperiment, we cannot simply pin thesepatterns on the “legacy” of economicand political institutions associated

with the pre-communist order if the sehad been eradicated by the communiststates.

A more promising analytical strategy would be to probe into the societalunderpinnings of the apparentreproduction of institutional legacies.

Thi s i s the route tha t Leonid Peisakhintakes when he sets out to interviewUkrainian villagers residing in adjacentterritories that in the past had formed

part of Imperial Russian and Austrianborderlands. Peisakhin finds thatcommunist legacies did not obliterateindividual and familial values, whichare passed on from one generation tothe next, and which vary depending on

which side of the fence one ’s ancestorshad resided in—Imperial Russian orAustrian. Employing a broad-brush“Unbroken Links? From Imperial Human Capitalto Post-Communist Modernisation,” Europe-AsiaStudies 64 (May 2012): 623-43.

analytical category of “institutionallegacies” would not have sufficed toexplain post-communist democratic

variations absent a fine apprecia tion ofthe importance of the micro-societal,

familial drivers of these variations. While past imperial ins titutions mighthave served as original triggers to thedevelopment of certain societal valueorientations, they would stop short ofexplaining the reproduction of legacyeffects. The distinction between or iginalinstitutional triggers of the developmentof societal values and the micro-societalmechanisms of the reproduction ofthese values is crucial to understanding

the persistence of “legacies” in variouscontexts. The family as an engine ofconservation of societal value patternshas been of course the focus of rich andlongstanding scholarship on culturalcapital yet it has been side-lined in the“great divergence” debates that accordedcenter stage to political-economicinstitutions like checks on government,record of autocracy, or legal tradition.6

Thi s brings me to the thi rd, leastdeveloped analytical strategy to fine-grain historical legacy analysis, namely

what I t erm “cross-legac y” comparisons.Much of what we know about the

various types of legacies and how theymight matter comes from what I call“within-legacy” or “common-legacy”comparative scholarship. The literatureon colonial legacies would be an exampleof within-legacy comparative work

whereby observations are selected based

on common experience of colonialism,

6. Leonid Peisakhin, “Long-Run Persistence ofPolitical Attitudes and Behavior: A Focus onMechanisms,” Paper Presented at the Conferenceon Historical Legacies and Contemporary Politics,

Juan March Institute, Madrid, 2013. On culturaland social capital, see Edward C. Banfield, e MoralBasis of a Backward Society (Glencoe: Free Press,1958); Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron,Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture(London: Aage, 1990); James S. Coleman, “SocialCapital in the Creation of Human Capital,” e

American Journal of Sociology 94 (Supplement, 1988):95-120.

and the variation on the dependent variables of long-run economic growthor democracy are explained withreference to the institutions put inplace by the various colonial powers

Another example of within-legacycomparisons is studies analyzing theuniverse of cases that share a commoncommunist experience, but vary withrespect to pre-communist legaciesof imperial tutelage. Curiously, therehas been very little cross-fertilizationamong these distinct bodies of legaciesresearch.

Nearly twenty years ago, scholars

studying Latin American transitionsand those analyzing political andeconomic transformations in formerlycommunist states debated the utilityof comparisons of the “south” with the“east.” The sharp divergences in LatinAmerican and East European statestwentieth century regime experiencesled Valerie Bunce to muse that acomparative exercise of this sort is lessabout comparing apples and oranges, bu

one more akin to comparing apples withkangaroos. The analogy is applicableto comparisons of former colonies of

Western states with Central and EastEuropean (CEE) countries sharing alegacy of communism. The universe ofnations included in studies of Westerncolonialism comprises highly developedoriginally White settler states, onthe one hand, and under-developedformer colonies in the Global Southon the other. Post-communist CEE

states cannot be straightforwardlyplaced into either of those categoriesFurthermore, Western colonial powersare also distinct from the heir to theRussian Empire, the Soviet Union

which imposed communis t rule in muchof the CEE region. These respectivesets of states vary along a whole rangeof dimensions—notably institutionalcultural, ideological, “civilizational,”and economic. Nevertheless, as Terry

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Lynn Karl, Philippe Schmitter, andindeed Valerie Bunce note, comparisonsacross even the very diverse universes ofcases can be fruitful. On the one hand,they encourage scholars to work with

concepts that are more general in naturethan those applicable to a smaller rangeof more similar cases. On the other, theycan force a serious rethink of paradigmsgenerated by exploring the narrowerrange of cases, which share a particularset of common characteristics.

Let me follow on these points toillustrate how specifically analyses oflong-run democratic and developmental

effects of historical legacies involving“cross-legacy” comparisons could befruitful. In particular, I highlight how“cross-legacy” comparisons can helpproblematize paradigms generated fromanalyzing a narrower universe of casessharing a particular legacy; fine-grainour understanding of what type of legacy

we are studying; e stablish what happensin terms of the reproduction of legacies

when institutional rupture between

some previous and newly establishedorder occurs; and understand how and why some legacies appear to enduredespite apparent rupture with pastinstitutions, policies, and practices. Jason

Wittenberg rightly problematiz es theconcept of a “historical legacy,” which,he argues, “conflates two analyticallydistinct though related conceptionsof legacy.” These two conceptions are“precursors that are earlier instantiationsof the outcome and precursors that are

antecedent causes of the outcome.”7 Based on a discussion of the universe ofpost-communist cases, Wittenberg notesthe challenges of d istinguishing between7. Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, “Froman Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding

Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?”Slavic Review 54 (Winter 1995): 965-978; ValerieBunce, “Should Transitologists be Grounded?” SlavicReview 54 (Spring 1995): 111-127; Jason Wittenberg,“What is a Historical Legacy?” Paper Presented at theAnnual Meeting of the American Political ScienceAssociation, Chicago, 2013; Jason Wittenberg, ”Whatdo we Mean by Historical Legacy?” APSA Qualitativeand Multi-Method Research Newsletter (Fall 2013).

the two, particularly when trying toestablish links between temporallydistant “precursors” and contemporaryoutcomes that strongly correlate withthese precursors. If we further pursue

the example of institutional legaciesdiscussed earlier in the essay, we cansee how cross-legacy comparisons mayhelp ascertain which type of legacy weare observing. Although “institutionallegacies” have featured prominentlyin legacies scholarship, the precisemechanisms that link past institutionsto contemporary outcomes are oftenunderspecified. Does “institutionallegacy” refer to the simple reproduction

of past institutions, as would bethe case with the institutions ofparliamentary democracy that Britishcolonial powers introduced and thepost-colonial governments retained?Or do “institutional legacies” refer toinstitutions that had been establishedin some historically distant point intime, that were then dismantled, butnevertheless continue to exercise someindirect effect on long-term outcomes?

Answering these questions is importantnot least because they highlight thepossibility that something else, construed

vaguely as “overhang, ” “shadow” of thepast, or indeed “legacy”—and not alwaysproperly specified—is intervening andthat it is this something else, ratherthan the original trigger institutions,that may be causing the apparentreproduction of institutional effects overtime.8 This “overhang” effect could be8. Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer, “History,Institutions, and Economic Performance: e Legacyof Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India,” e

American Economic Review 95 (September 2005):1190-213; Valerie Bunce, “e National Idea: ImperialLegacies and Post-Communist Pathways in EasternEurope,” East European Politics & Societies 19 (Summer2005): 406-42; Jeffrey Kopstein, “Review Article:Postcommunist Democracy: Legacies and Outcomes,”Comparative Politics 35 (January 2003): 231-50;Lankina, “Unbroken Links?”; Grigore Pop-Elechesand Joshua Tucker, “Communism’s Shadow: eEffect of Communist Legacies on Post-CommunistPreferences, Evaluations, and Behavior,” PaperPresented at the Conference on Historical Legaciesand Contemporary Politics, Juan March Institute,

Madrid, 2013.

a policy or institution, but it could be the product of original institutikick-starting important processes, sas those related to the developmof human or cultural capital, and i

the reproduction of spatial patternshuman and cultural capital variatithat we may be observing rather tthe effect of what Wittenberg refersas “precursor” institutions.

In many post-colonial settings, structures of government, legal systeand civil service bureaucracies wretained or only partially reformed athe colonies acquired independen

These ins titutions may have kistarted important societal proces

which may constitute what Wittenbconceptualizes as transmissmechanisms of particular colonperiod legacies. These procemay provide important clues explaining cross-national variatiin developmental and political regpathways. Yet, because of the continuin institutional reproduction in m

post-colonial contexts, disentanglthe effects of specific institutions frthose of processes and patterns that tmay have helped kick-start becomproblematic. One way of addressing challenge is to conduct a natural quexperiment of comparing units wsome form of institutional continu

with the past, as would be the casemany former colonies, and those whemuch more radical institutional ruptoccurred, as would be the case with po

communist states. This would be example of cross-legacy research.

For instance, drawing on Banerjee Iyer’s data and research into cololand tenure in Indian districts, LuGetachew and I have comparativanalyzed the causal mechanisms linkserfdom and specific types of land tento long-run sub-national developmenand democratic variations in Russia

India. Because in Russia far more sev

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Lankin

institutional rupture occurred betweenthe imperial and communist ordersas compared to institutional shiftsassociated with India’s independencefrom the British colonial rule, we are

able to more conclusively establishthat the observed links betweenpast institutions and long-term sub-national developmental variations inboth cases are partly due to humancapital reproduction, and cannot bealways explained with reference to whatBanerjee and Iyer call an institutional“overhang” effect.9 States with a legacyof communism can therefore represent

9. Tomila Lankina and Lull it Getachew, “e

Legacies of Peasant Bondage: Agrarian Institutions,Human Capital and Development in Russia andIndia,” Paper Presented at the Conference onHistorical Legacies and Contemporary Politics, JuanMarch Institute, Madrid, 2013; Abhijit Banerjee andLakshmi Iyer, “History, Institutions, and EconomicPerformance: e Legacy of Colonial Land TenureSystems in India,” e American Economic Review 95(September 2005): 1190-213.

useful comparative reference points fordistinguishing between institutionaland other legacies; for understanding

why some types of legac ies appear toendure over others; and for fine-tuning

our analyses of the mechanisms ofreproduction of past legacies.

In his fine essay “is the science ofcomparative politics possible?” AdamPrzeworski refers to endogeneity asthe “motor of history”—disentanglingthe effects of variables that evolvedfrom some initial circumstances inthe distant past and may be mutuallyinterdependent and mutually

reinforcing will remain a challengingtask. The inter-disciplinary scholarlyeffort of recent years to plunge thedepths of history further and further,multiplying the “whys” in the questionof the “why of the why”; scaling down

the unit of analysis; distinguishingbetween, and problematizing, differentypes of legacies; and pursuingcomparative research across legacies

wil l hopefully take us some way toward

meeting this challenge.10

Tomila Lankina is an associate professor

of international relations at the London

School of Economics and Political Science.

10. Adam Przeworski, “Is the Science of ComparativPolitics Possible?” in Charles Boix and Susan Stokes,eds., e Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); JeffreyKopstein and David Reilly, “Explaining the Why ofthe Why: A Comment on Fish’s ‘Determinants ofEconomic Reform in the Post-Communist World’,”

East European Politics and Societies 13 (September1999): 613-24.


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Beyond National Colonial Legacies

In the long established tradition ofexamining the unique developmentaland political consequences of differentnational colonial legacies, many large-N

studies have demonstrated the positiveconsequences of British rule (vis-à-visother national colonial legacies) formass education and literacy, economicdevelopment, effective governance,and postcolonial democracy).1 Yet,the consequences of British rule have

varied widely acros s the globe, fromdemocracy and development in settler1.e hypothesis that the British colonial legacyis favorable to postcolonial democracy is generallyassociated with Samuel Huntington, “Will More

Countries Become Democratic?” Political ScienceQuarterly 99 (Summer 1984) and Myron Weiner,“Empirical Democratic eor y,” in Myron Weinerand Ergun Ozbundun, eds., Comparative Electionsin Developing Countries (Washington: AmericanEnterprise Institute, 1987). Statistical confirmationof this hypothesis is demonstrated by KennethBollen, “Political Democracy and the Timing ofDevelopment,” American Sociological Review 44(August 1979): 572-587; Kenneth Bollen andRobert Jackman, “Political Democracy and theSize Distribution of Income,” American SociologicalReview 50 (August 1985): 438-457; Axel Hadenius,Democracy and Development (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992); Seymour Martin Lipset,Kyoung-Ryung Seong, and John C. Torres, “A

Comparative Analysis of the Social Requisites ofDemocracy,” International Social Science Journal45 (1993): 155-175; Edward Muller, “EconomicDeterminants of Democracy,” American SociologicalReview 60 (December 1995): 966-982. Partialstatistical confirmation is demonstrated in MichaelBernhard, Christopher Reenock, and TimothyNordstrom, “e Legacy of Western OverseasColonialism on Democratic Survival,” InternationalStudies Quarterly 48 (March 2004): 225-250. Studiesdemonstrating a positive effect of British rule onlong-term developmental trajectories include JohnR. Hanson, “Education, Economic Developmentand Technology Transfer: A Colonial Test,” Journalof Economic History 49 (December 1989): 939-957;David S. Brown, “Democracy, Colonization and

Human Capital in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Studies inComparative International Development 35 (Spring2000): 20-40; David S. Landes, e Wealth andPoverty of Nations: Why Some Nations are so Richand Some So Poor (New York: W. V. Norton & Co.,1998); Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez‐de‐Silanes,Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny, “Law andFinance,” Journal of Political Economy 106 (December1998): 1113-1155; Rafael La Porta, FlorencioShleifer, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishney,“e Quality of Government,” Journal of Law,

Economics, and Organization 15 (April 1999): 222-279; Ruth Grier, “Colonial Legacies and EconomicGrowth,” Public Choice 98 (March 1999): 317-355;Ruth Grier, “e Effect of Religion on EconomicDevelopment: A Cross-National Analysis of 63

Former Colonies,” Kyklos 50 (March 1997): 47-62.

societies such as Canada, the UnitedStates or Australia, to postcolonialdemocracy with limited development atindependence (e.g. Jamaica, Mauritiusor India), to postcolonial development

with limited democracy (e.g. HongKong, Singapore, or Malaysia), andlimited development or democracy (asin Sierra Leone, Uganda, or Nigeriafor most of the postcolonial era). Thesediverse outcomes reflect the fact thatthe nature of British colonization

varied significantly across time andspace. Thus, recent scholarship hasbegun to move away from nationalcolonial legacies, to investigate how

different economic and administrativeinstitutions, actors, and state-societyrelations inherited from the colonial erahave affected long-term developmentand postcolonial democracy.

Settler vs. “Extractive” Colonization

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson were among the fir stscholars to move beyond nationalcolonial legacies with their path-breaking analysis of the developmentalconsequences of “settler” vs. “extractive”colonization. Using OLS regressionanalysis on a sample of 64 formercolonies, Acemoglu et al. demonstratethat low mortality rates among Europeansettlers at the onset of colonizationpredict higher levels of democracy in1900, more institutional constraintson executive authority in 1900, andstronger property rights in 1985-95. Using colonial settler mortality

as an instrument for institutionalquality in 1985-95, 2SLS models alsodemonstrate a positive and statisticallysignificant relationship between lowsettler mortality rates and per capitaincome in 1995.2 The authors propose

2. See Daron Acemgolu, Simon Johnson, and JamesRobinson, “e Colonial Origins of ComparativeDevelopment: An Empirical Investigation,” e

American Economic Review 91 (December 2001):1369-1401. OLS regression analysis yields the sameresult, regardless of whether institutional quality(1985-95) or settler mortality rates are used as the

primary independent variable. e 2SLS results also

the following mechanism to explainthis outcome: choosing to settle incolonies where they faced low mortalityrates, European settlers demanded(and typically obtained) political and

economic institutions that guaranteedtheir individual liberties, therebyprotecting themselves from the threatof expropriation by the colonial stateIn colonies that lacked an extensivesettler population, by contrast, coloniaauthorities established “extractive”institutions that limited individuacivil liberties, allowing colonial elitesto extract resources and exploit non-

white labor. Accord ing ly, the exten

of European settlement during thecolonial era explains institutiona variation among former colonies, whichin turn accounts for the significant

variation in economic developmentacross former colonies today. Al thoughAcemoglu et al. primarily investigatesthe colonial origins of economicdevelopment, future scholarship canalso investigate the impact of settler vsextractive colonization on mean levelsof postcolonial democracy.

Direct vs. Indirect Rule

Recent scholarship has also investigatedthe impact of different legal-administrative institutions on long-term development and democratizationexamining variation among countriescolonized by the same European powerFor example, Matthew Lange’s researchexplores the distinct developmentaand political consequences of direct vs

indirect British rule. Whereas directrule depended on a uniform bureaucraticstate apparatus that resembled themodern European state, indirect rulerelied heavily on “customary law” as

hold regardless of whether the sample includes orexcludes the high performing British settler colonies(United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)and whether the sample includes or excludes Africancountries, given their low economic performance.

e results are also robust to the addition of control variables for latitude, religious composition, nationalcolonial legacies (British or French) and French legal

origin (Acemoglu et al. 2001: 1386-1389).

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traditional indigenous elites served asintermediaries between the colonialstate and the general population.Lange’s index of indirect rule measuresthe percentage of legal cases heard

in “customary” courts overseen bytraditional chiefs in 1955, rather thanBritish magistrates, in common lawcourts.3 British colonies with extensiveEuropean settlement (e.g. Canada andNew Zealand) were directly governed.Among colonies with limited Europeansettlement, indirect rule ranged from0 percent in “commercial colonies”(e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong) and“plantation colonies” (e.g. Jamaica,

Trinidad, Mauritius, Sri Lanka), to over

80 percent in certain African countries with overwhe lmingly rural andindigenous populations (e.g. Nigeria,Sierra Leone, Uganda). Using OLSregression analysis, Lange demonstratesa negative and statistically significantrelationship between indirect Britishrule and socio-economic development(logged per capita income, averageschool attainment, and infant mortalityrates in 1970 and 2000). Simila rly,

indirect rule predicts poorer governance,less bureaucratic effectiveness, weakerrule of law, higher governmentalgovernment during the 1990s, andlower mean levels of democracy, 1972-2000. The OLS models control for anumber of competing explanationsincluding European settlement, ethnicfractionalization, and logged pre-colonial density, and the empirical resultsremain robust regardless of whetherthe highly developed British “settlercolonies” are included or excluded fromthe analysis. Lange further explores thecausal mechanism linking indirect rule

3. See Matthew Lange, “British Colonial Legaciesand Political Development,” World Development32 ( June 2004): 905-922; Matthew Lange,“British Colonial State Legacies and Development

Trajectories: A Statistical Analysis of Direct andIndirect Rule,” in Matthew K. Lange and DietrichRueschemeyer, eds., States and Development: Historical

Antecedents of Stagnation and Advance (London:Palgrave/Macmillan); Lange, Lineages of Despotismand Development , 2009.

to poor developmental outcomes and theabsence or breakdown of postcolonialdemocracy through case studies ofSierra Leone, Mauritius, Botswanaand Guyana.4 Lange’s nuanced

distinction between direct vs. indirectrule makes an important contributionto our understanding of the varieddevelopmental and postcolonial regimeoutcomes across the former BritishEmpire, demonstrating the limitationsof national colonial dummies.

Colonial missionaries, human capital

and postcolonial democracy

Another recent trend has been toinvestigate the long-term developmental

and political consequences of colonialmissionary activity, given thatmissionaries were often independentactors with distinct interests, goalsand motivations from colonial settlers,merchants and administrators. In mostcolonial empires, Christian missionariesplayed a significant role in providingeducation, although the relationshipbetween missionaries and the colonialstate varied significantly across time

and space. Missionaries enjoyed themost autonomy in British colonies after1813, as the introduction of religiousliberty and liberal-plural church-staterelations facilitated competition amongdifferent Christian denominations toprovide education and other publicservices. In many British colonies,state funds were also used to funddenominational schools. In the FrenchEmpire, by contrast, Republican laicité legislation forbade the use of publicfunds to support denominationalschools after 1903, resulting in lowerlevels of educational attainment. Andin the Spanish, Portuguese and BelgianEmpires, where the Catholic Churchenjoyed a state monopoly over “nativeeducation,” the provision of educationalso remained limited, given the absence

4. Lange 2009, Lineages of Despotism andDevelopment.

of competition.5 Consequently, thehistoric presence of missionaries and thenature of colonial church-state relationhave had profound consequences foreducational attainment, economic

growth, and postcolonial democracy inmuch of the developing world.

The most ambitious and comprehensiveempirical study on colonial missionariesis Robert Woodberry’s recent articlein the American Political SciencReview. This study demonstratesa strong empirical relationshipbetween the historical presence ofProtestant missionaries, educationaattainment and postcolonial democracy

Woodberry’s argument is as followsconversionary Protestants establishedmission schools to enable the masses toread the bible in their own languages

These schoo ls promoted mass lit eracysocio-economic development, and theemergence of a middle class. Missionschools also taught organizationalskills, enabling the rise of massprinting, civil society and new sociamovements, which agitated for social

and political reforms, and ultimatelyfacilitated democratization. Wherethe historical presence of Protestantmissionaries was limited, by contrasteducational opportunities remainedmuch more limited, preventing therise of a middle class, limiting societaldemands for social and politicalreforms, and ultimately hinderingpostcolonial democracy. Testing hisargument on a sample of 142 “non-

Western” countries, Woodberry findsthat several variables related to thehistorical presence of Protestantism(e.g. per capita Protestant missionariesin 1923; percent evangelized in1900; number of years of exposure toProtestant missions) predict highermean levels of democracy between 1950and 1994. Perhaps more strikingly

5. Robert D. Woodberry, “e Missionary Roots ofLiberal Democracy,” American Political Science Review106 (May 2012), 254.

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the British colonial dummy loses itsstatistical significance once the historicpresence of Protestant missionariesis controll ed for. Furthermore, these

results remain robust to statisticalcontrols for geography, currentreligious composition, current levels ofsocio-economic development, as well ashistorical levels of European settlementand socio-economic development.6

The sta tis tic al signific ance of theProtestant missionary variables (ratherthan historic levels of Europeansettlement, or precolonial urbanizationand population density) as predictorsof democracy also demonstrates therobustness of Woodberry’s argument

vis-à-vi s Acemoglu et al ’s earl ierhypothesis on European settlement.

In a similar vein, Lankina andGetachew examine how colonialinstitutions and the historic presence ofChristianity affected literacy outcomesand postcolonial democracy in India,testing the theoretical arguments ofRobert Woodberry against those of

Matthew Lange. This study makestwo important contributions to ourunderstanding of the relationshipbetween colonialism, developmentand postcolonial democracy: first, itdisaggregates the institutional legaciesof colonialism (direct vs. indirectrule) from the legacy of Christianevangelization during the colonialera. Second, it exploits district-level

variation, thereby contributing to our

knowledge of how colonial institutions,religion, modernization (urbanization),and human capital have affectedsubnational democracy in India—Lankina and Getachew examine voterparticipation and partisan competitionin state-level elections. In this study,Christianity predicts significantlyhigher rates of male, female, and totalliteracy during the colonial (1911-

6. Robert D. Woodberry, “e Missionary Roots ofLiberal Democracy,” 244-274.

1931) and postcolonial eras (1971-2001). Literacy rates inherited from thecolonial era also predict higher levels ofpostcolonial democracy (1971-2001).

Interestingly, direct British rule alsopredicts higher rates of male and totalliteracy, but its effe ct on fema le literacyis insignificant. At the same time, theimpact of direct rule on postcolonialdemocracy is insignificant once literacyis controlled for. These results suggestthat in the case of India, at least,Christianity has had a more profoundimpact on literacy and postcolonialdemocracy than direct British rule.

The authors claim tha t thi s ref lectsthe more elitist (and limited) nature ofgovernment vis-à-vis mission schoolsduring the colonial era.7 Nevertheless,given that these data are from a singlecountry that is often consideredas the exception par excellence tomost theoretical explanations ofdemocratization, the debate over

whether Christian missionaries(Woodberry) or colonial institutions(Lange, Acemoglu et al, La Porta et

al) are stronger predictors of long-term development and postcolonialdemocracy remains unresolved, andthis remains a fruitful area for futureempirical research.

Avenues for fut ure resear ch:

Thi s essay conc ludes by outlining fourpossible avenues for future researchon colonialism, development, anddemocratization.

First, future research should continuethe current trend of moving beyondnational colonial legacies, recognizingthe diversity of economic models,administrative institutions, and state-society relations that existed amongcountries colonized by the same

7. See Tomila Lankina and Lullit Getachew,“Mission or Empire, Word or Sword? e HumanCapital Legacy in Postcolonial DemocraticDevelopment,” American Journal of Political Science 56(April 2012): 465-483.

European power. In this vein, one omy current working papers exploresthe developmental and politicaconsequences of forced settlement (the

mass import of non-indigenous Africanslaves and/or Asian indentured laborersto recently settled plantation colonies)

vis-à-vis colonia l occupation (Europeandomination over indigenous societiesand populations). By the end of thecolonial era (c. 1960), however, forcedsettlement colonies had significantlyhigher adult literacy rates than coloniesof occupation, and they have alsoenjoyed significantly higher mean levelsof postcolonial democracy. This papesheds light on this puzzle, exploring the

variation in admin ist rative strateg ieand citizenship policies across thetwo types of colonies. Administrativereforms following the abolition ofslavery extended greater civil libertiesand social and in some cases, politicalrights to emancipated slaves who wereultimately recognized as metropolitansubjects or citizens. In colonies ofoccupation, by contrast, the colonia

states constructed various “native codesthat denied basic individual liberties toindigenous populations. These distinclegal-administrative institutions seemto have had lasting consequences forsocial development and postcolonialdemocracy.8

Second, future research on colonialegacies can also contribute to broaderdebates about the relationship between

development and democracy. At presentthe economics and sociology literatureon the developmental consequencesof colonialism is more advanced thanthe political science literature onthe consequences of colonialism for

8. See Olukunle P. Owolabi, “Literacy andDemocracy After Slavery? e Long-TermConsequences of Forced Settlement and ColonialOccupation in the Developing World,” paperpresented at American Political Science AssociationAnnual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (September2012).


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Owolab

postcolonial democracy. As theseoutcomes are likely interconnected,future research can systematicallyinvestigate how patterns of socio-economic development inheritedfrom the colonial era have affectedpostcolonial democracy. Examiningthis relationship might reveal somesurprising empirical findings that couldcontribute to general knowledge on therelationship between development anddemocracy. For example, my workingpaper on the developmental and politicalconsequences of forced settlement vis-à-vis colonial occupation finds thatamong countries decolonized after

World War Two, 1960 adult liter acy

rates predict significantly highermean levels of postcolonial democracy,

whereas the impact of per capita GDPis statistically insignificant.9 Thissuggests that colonial systems thatpromoted mass education have hadfavorable consequences for postcolonialdemocracy, even if colonialismdid not contribute significantlyto substantial industrialization oreconomic development. Following up

on this point, future research couldsystematically examine which of the various developmental indicatorsinherited from the colonial era—e.g.adult literacy, per capita income,economic inequality, urbanizationor industrialization rates, etc.—havethe strongest impact on postcolonialdemocracy.

Thi rd, future res earch could be moreattentive to historical periodization,given that colonial institutions often

varied over time within individualcountries. The dynamic nature ofcolonialism is not captured well inlarge-N statistical studies, which oftenexamine how historical institutions ata specific moment (e.g. indirect rule c.1955; Protestant missionaries in 1931)9. Olukunle P. Owolabi, “Literacy and DemocracyAfter Slavery?” e positive contribution ofcolonial literacy to postcolonial democracy is alsodemonstrated in Lankina and Getachew’s 2012 study

on India.

affected long-term development orpostcolonial regime outcomes. Whilesome of these factors are relatively static,countries often experienced significantsocial or political reforms that arguabl yreversed, undermined, or mitigated theconsequences of earlier institutionallegacies. The success of postcolonialdemocracy may reflect the way in

which institutional cr ises were resol vedduring the run-up to independence (oreven shortly af terward), rather than theeconomic or political institutions thatexisted during the height of the colonialera. Case studies and small-N studiesare especially useful for answering thesetypes of questions, which depend on

more focused process-tracing. There arealready some excellent case studies thatoutline the developmental consequencesof decolonizing reforms in individualcountries, and small-N comparisonscan be useful for explaining divergentpostcolonial outcomes in countries witha similar colonial heritage (e.g. India v s.Pakistan).10 Yet, additional case studies

would be useful for exploring other“deviant” cases such as Costa Rica and

Belize, or for comparing countries withsimilar colonial histories but divergentpostcolonial outcomes.

Finally, future research could devotemore attention to how distinct colonialinstitutions affected development and/or postcolonial regime outcomes atthe state or local level within a singlecountr y. In many countries, the colonialexperience varied significantly acrosssubnational units, although there is10. See, for example, Matthew Lange,“Developmental Crises: A Comparative-HistoricalAnalysis of State-Building in Colonial Bostwana andMalaysia,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 47(February 2009): 1-27; Matthew Lange, “Embeddingthe Colonial State: A Comparative-HistoricalAnalysis of State-Building and Broad-BasedDevelopment in Mauritius,” Social Science History 27(Fall 2003): 397-423; Carmen White, “HistoricizingEducational Disparity: Colonial Policy and FijianEducational Attainment,” History of Education 32( July 2003): 345-365. For a comparative analysis ofIndia and Pakistan, see Maya Tudor, e Promise ofPower: e Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracyin Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press).

ver y little scholarship inves tigating theconsequences of this for subnationalpostcolonial governance. Lankinaand Getachew’s recent study onIndia is certainly a step in the rightdirection, and future scholarship couldexamine similar variation in countrieslike Brazil, Malaysia, Nigeria, SouthAfrica, or the United S tates, where thecolonial experience varied significantlyacross subnational units. Becausemost democracy indicators focus onnational, rather than subnationagovernment, this type of researchremains underdeveloped at presentNevertheless, it would be a fruitfulavenue for further research, given

the growing empirical literature onsubnational democracy.

In sum, I have highlighted fourimportant ways in which future resea rchcould contribute to empirical knowledgeon colonialism, development anddemocratization: by highlighting otherforms of institutional variation withinand across different colonial empiresthrough more rigorous testing of the

relationship between development anddemocracy; by using qua litative methodthat are more attentive to historicalperiodization within the coloniaera; and by exploring subnationa

variations in colonial ins titutions andpostcolonial governance. Each of theseavenues can contribute significantly toempirical knowledge on comparativedemocratization, while at the sametime, contributing to interdisciplinarylinkages between political sciencedevelopment economics, sociology andmodern history.

Olukunle P. Owolabi is an assistan

profess or of pol itical scien ce at Villano va

University.


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activity of European colonizers, settlers,or institutions.

In an article in the American Pol iticalScience Review (The Missionary

Roots of Liberal Democracy, 2012)I argued historically and statisticallythat conversionary Protestants (CPs)heavily influenced both the rise ofstable democracy in Europe andNorth America and the spread ofstable democracy around the world.However, the link between CPs anddemocracy was mostly indirect becauseCPs catalyzed religious liberty, masseducation, mass printing, newspapers,

voluntary organizations, and colonialreforms, thereby creating conditionsthat made stable, liberal democracymore likely. Statistically, the historicprevalence of Protestant missionariesexplains about half the variation indemocracy in Africa, Asia, LatinAmerica and Oceania and removesthe impact of most variables thatdominate current statistical researchabout democracy. Yet, to understand

why thi s stati stical result is plausible, it

is important to understand the historythat underlies it.

Historical Argument The association between Protestanti smand democracy did not begin withthe missionary movement. Calvinistsand Nonconformists contributed todemocratic theory and institutions outof a concern to limit state power, to guardagainst the corruptibility of all humansand human institutions, and to justify

rebellion against rulers who persecutedthem. Later democratic activistsused these ideas and institutions (incombination with others) to establishrepresentative democracy. In addition,Nonconformists (i.e., non-state-supported Protestant denominations)historically suffered from persecutionby governments and state churches.

Thus they fought both for relig iousliberty and against state interference in

civil society. In the eighteenth throughearly twentieth centuries, CPs generallysided with enlightenment elites againststate churches and their conservativeallies. When they lacked this religious

support, enlightenment elites had asmall power base and typically setup either autocratic or unstable andilliberal democratic regimes.

In Protestant Europe, conflict betweenCPs and defenders of state churchesdivided economic and political elitesand often created incentives to extend

vot ing rights to excluded groups.Moreover, CPs helped foster conditionsthat facilitated stable democratization.

CPs such as Protestant missionaries wanted people to read the Bib le in theirown language and wanted to facilitatelay religious involvement. Thus, as CPstried to spread their faith, they catalyzedmass education, mass printing, and civilsociety—hampering elite attempts tomonopolize these resources. Protestantsthemselves did not always providethe most educational, printing, and

civil society resources, but Protestantinitiatives spurred others to investheavily in these areas and to pressuregovernments to create schools thatrestricted Protestant content. Theseresource transfers to non-elites helpedalter the class structure, fostered therise of political parties and nonviolentpolitical movements, and facilitatedbroader political participation.

Finally, non-state missionaries

moderated colonial abuses, particularly when abuses undermined conversionsand primarily in Br itish colonies (whereCPs had greater influence). To reachtheir religious goals, mission supportersoften punished abusive colonialofficials and counterbalanced whitesettlers, which fostered the rule of law,encouraged less violent repression ofanticolonial political organization, andfacilitated peaceful decolonization.

Of course, Protestant economic andpolitical elites were as s elfish as anyoneelse. Protestant slave owners foughslave literacy, and Protestant settlerexploited indigenous people. Even

Protestant missionaries sometimehampered democracy: for example inSouth Africa, Afrikaans missionariehelped create the ideology of apartheidMoreover, in some contexts Protestanmissions seemed to have indirectlyfostered religious violence.1 Still

when missionaries were financial lyindependent of the state, slave ownersand white settlers, they underminedthese elite co-religionists in ways thafostered democracy.

To those not trained in mission historythe previous description of missioninfluences may sound too rosy. Thereis insufficient space in this articleto discuss the history that underliethese generalizations or describethe complexity within the missionmovement. Some missionaries wereclearly racist and insensitive, andmissionary behavior disrupted loca

societies, but if the main consequenceof Protestant missionaries was violenceand social deterioration, mission

would not have a robustly posit iveassociation with democracy, economicdevelopment, education, healthnewspaper circulation, voluntaryassociation membership, and so onUltimately our goal should not be toforce a conclusion, but to rigorouslytest what missionaries’ impact was and

whether their activ ity explains previou

research results.

Statistical EvidenceAs mentioned previously, Protestanmissions has a strong s

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