Beyond the Civil Democratic Peace:
Subnational Political Institutions
and Internal Armed Conflict
Tore [email protected]
Department of Political Science
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Oslo
Advisors:
Professor H̊avard Hegre
Professor Carl Henrik Knutsen
April 2015
Contents
List of Figures 9
List of Tables 11
Acknowledgements 3
1 Institutions and Civil Peace in Weak States 7
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.1 Crucial definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2 The institutional causes of conflict: The case for a subnational approach 11
1.2.1 Subnational institutions in weak states: Beyond methodological
statism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.2 Customary institutions: Ashanti in Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.2.3 Formal local government institutions: The Boko Haram insurgency
in Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3 Conceptual framework: Institutional attributes, ethnic groups and conflict 23
1.3.1 Institutions as rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.3.2 Institutional attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.3.3 Ethnic groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.3.4 Internal armed conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.4 Theoretical framework: The conflict ladder and the role of institutions . 27
1.4.1 The individual level: Rationality and motivations . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4.2 The organizational level: Groups as unitary actors . . . . . . . . . 29
1.4.3 The bargaining level: Obstacles to agreements short of war . . . . 30
1.4.4 How institutions solve bargaining problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.5 Measuring institutions and conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.5.1 Data on subnational institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.5.2 Varieties of internal conflict data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.6 Reaching conclusions: Philosophy and methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.6.1 Causal explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.6.2 Methodological framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.7 Structure of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.7.1 Part I: National institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.7.2 Part II: Customary institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1.7.3 Part III: Formal local government institutions . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.8 Implications for research and policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
I National Institutions 51
2 Do Liberal Institutions Pacify? A Predictive Validation Analysis of
Institutional Arguments for Civil Peace 53
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.2 Liberal institutional explanations for civil conflict: Democracy, quality of
government and the rule of law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.3 Predictive evaluation: Why and how . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.3.1 Metrics for evaluating predictive accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.3.2 How to evaluate out-of-sample performance . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.4 Research design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.4.1 Measuring institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.4.2 Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.5 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.5.1 In-sample validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.5.2 Out-of-sample validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
2.5.3 Where does the liberal model miss? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.5.4 Alternative explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
II The Role of Subnational Customary Institutions 85
3 Peace from the Past: Pre-Colonial Political Institutions and Civil Wars
in Africa 87
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.2 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.2.1 Classifying pre-colonial institutions: The centralized-decentralized
dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.2.2 The modern impact of pre-colonial institutions . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.3 Pre-colonial institutions and civil war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.4 Research design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.4.1 Unit of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4
3.4.2 Dependent variable: Ethnic armed conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.4.3 Independent variable: Pre-colonial centralization . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.4.4 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3.5 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.5.1 Statistical models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4 Which Groups Fight? Customary Institutions and Communal Conflicts
in Africa 109
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.2 Current explanations of communal conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.3 Customary institutions and ethnic groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.4 Institutional explanations for war applied to traditional institutions . . . 115
4.5 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.5.1 Unit of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.5.2 Communal conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.5.3 Customary institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.5.4 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.6 Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
4.6.1 Controlling for alternative pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.6.2 Predictive power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
III The Role of Formal Local Government Institutions 137
5 Subnational Institutional Quality and Local Conflict Violence in Africa139
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
5.2 Institutional quality and conflict: State of the art . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.3 Why local institutional quality pacifies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
5.4 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
5.4.1 Local institutional quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.4.2 Conflict-related violence events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.4.3 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.5 Baseline results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
5.5.1 Endogeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.5.2 Alternative model specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6 The Institutional Legacies of Local Conflict Violence: Perception-Based
Evidence from the Afrobarometer Surveys 163
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.2 The institutional effects of local conflict: State of the art . . . . . . . . . 165
5
6.2.1 Institutional persistence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.2.2 Conflict-induced decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.2.3 Conflict as a catalyst for institutional development . . . . . . . . 169
6.3 Research design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.3.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.3.2 Perceptions of institutional quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
6.3.3 Conflict exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.3.4 Empirical strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
6.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.4.1 Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.4.2 Trust in local institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.4.3 Threshold and cumulative effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
6.4.4 Robustness and conditional effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
IV Appendices and Bibliography 191
7 Appendix to Chapter 2 193
7.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.2 Descriptive statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.3 Additional controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.4 Analyses when democracy is endogenized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.5 Comparing predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8 Appendix to Chapter 3 203
8.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.2 The dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.2.1 Matching the Ethnographic Atlas to EPR (the EA2EPR dataset) 203
8.2.2 Validity and reliability of the Ethnographic Atlas data . . . . . . 206
8.3 List of variables: Sources and operationalizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.3.1 Afrobarometer variables (used in validity check in Appendix) . . . 209
8.4 Summary statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8.5 Predictive power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.6 Controlling for additional group traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
8.7 Multiple imputation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
8.8 Removing influential observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
8.9 Adressing endogeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
8.10 Alternative unit of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
8.11 Controlling for relative size and MEG power-status . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
8.12 Random intercept instead of country dummies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
6
9 Appendix to Chapter 4 227
9.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.2 Matching the UCDP communal conflict data to EPR . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.3 Analysis of FCI branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
9.4 Count models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
9.5 Descriptives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
9.6 List of regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
9.7 List of matched EPR groups with communal conflict . . . . . . . . . . . 233
10 Appendix to Chapter 5 237
10.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
10.2 Creating the dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
10.2.1 Descriptions of main variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
10.2.2 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
10.2.3 Factor analysis investigating local institutional quality dimension 241
10.3 Descriptive statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
10.4 Matching diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
10.5 Sensitivity tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
10.5.1 Alternative functional form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
10.5.2 Removing extreme cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
10.5.3 Removing low-respondent cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
10.5.4 Additional control variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
10.5.5 Parsimonious models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
10.5.6 Additional hurdle model for round 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
10.5.7 Modeling survey risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
10.6 Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
11 Appendix to Chapter 6 265
11.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
11.2 Variable descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.2.1 Dependent variables from Afrobarometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.3 Descriptives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
11.4 Excluding random intercepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
11.5 Lag length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
11.6 No post-treatment variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
11.7 Casualties instead of event counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.8 Cumulative conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
11.9 Conditional effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.10Region dummies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
11.11Countries included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
12 Bibliography 285
7
List of Figures
1.1 Murdock’s ethnographic map of pre-colonial polities in Africa . . . . . . 17
1.2 Ghana (red border) and contemporary Ashantiland (green border) . . . . 20
1.3 GED conflict events (1989-2010) overlaid on country borders . . . . . . . 39
2.1 In-sample ROC and Precision Recall curves for a standard civil-war onset
model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.2 In-sample AUROC and AUPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.3 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR (cross-validation runs=1000) . . . . . 73
2.4 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR (cross-validation runs=1000) . . . . . 74
2.5 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR with different regions as test sets . . 76
2.6 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR with young regimes as test sets . . . 79
2.7 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR with large countries as test sets . . . 80
2.8 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR comparisons to baseline with income
removed (cross-validation runs=1000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.1 Murdock‘s map of pre-colonial ethnic institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.2 Predicted probabilities of ethnic armed conflict onset when Pre-colonial
CentralizationMEG increases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.1 Descriptives for FCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.2 Simulated probability of dyad-level communal conflict for different levels
of FCI, 1989-2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.3 Distribution of coefficient estimates from Bayesian model averaging . . . 132
4.4 In-sample predictive power for models with and without institutional vari-
ables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.1 Map showing the distribution of Local Institutional Quality (district level)
in Afrobarometer rounds 3 and 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.2 Institutional quality at national level (World Bank) and national means of
Local Institutional Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
5.3 Map showing the distribution of Local Institutional Quality (administrative-
district level) in Uganda and Nigeria, round 3, and GED conflict events . 151
5.4 Map showing the continental distribution of Local Institutional Quality
(district level), round 3, and GED conflict events . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.5 Expected count of GED-events in a district in the post-survey period . . 156
6.1 All survey clusters (2005,2008 and 2012) and all conflict events (1989-2010) 172
6.2 Looking for threshold effects: Experienced and perceived corruption . . . 185
6.3 Looking for threshold effects: Trust in local institutions . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.1 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR comparisons to baseline with added
control variables (cross-validation runs=1000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.2 Out-of-sample AUROC and AUPR comparisons to baseline when Democ-
racy is endogenized using WAVE (cross-validation runs=1000) . . . . . . 195
8.1 In-sample ROC plots showing improvements in predictive accuracy . . . 212
8.2 Distributions of out-of-sample AUC values from 100 cross-validation runs
without and with Pre-colonial CentralizationMEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
10.1 Scatterplots of Local Institutional Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
10.2 Distribution of Local Institutional Quality (Afrobarometer rounds 3 and 4) 245
10.3 Administrative districts, round 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
10.4 Administrative districts, round 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
10
List of Tables
1.1 Survey items capturing perceptions of local institutional quality from the
Afrobarometer survey (round 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.2 Communal conflicts by world region, 1989-2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.1 Concepts, variables and factor loadings on common dimension . . . . . . 67
2.2 Logit models of conflict onset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.1 Bivariate correlations between pre-colonial centralization and various group-
level traits (group is the unit of analysis, N=243) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.2 Logit Models of the probability of ethnic armed conflict onset in EGIP-
MEG dyads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.3 Cross-sectional logit and OLS models of ethnic armed conflict onsets (bi-
nary and count) in EGIP-MEG dyads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.4 Logit models of the probability of ethnic armed conflict onset in EGIP-
MEG dyads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.1 Correlations between customary institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.2 Descriptive statistics main independent variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
4.3 Logit model of communal conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.4 Linear models of log(communal conflicts+.001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.1 Negative binomial count models regressing GED events on the quality of
local institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.2 Negative binomial count models of GED events when observations are
matched on conflict history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.3 Hurdle model (rounds 3 and 4 combined) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.1 Overview of hypotheses linking conflict to institutional quality, and related
mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
6.2 Items used to tap perceptions of institutional quality . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.3 Sample means of outcome variables in conflict vs. non-conflict areas . . . 178
6.4 Random-intercept GLS models of corruption experiences . . . . . . . . . 179
6.5 Random-intercept GLS models of corruption perceptions . . . . . . . . . 180
6.6 Random-intercept GLS models of trust in police and politicians . . . . . 182
6.7 Summary: Estimated relationships for items capturing perceptions of in-
stitutional quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
6.8 Random-intercept GLS models investigating effect of long-term conflict on
institutional quality items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.1 Fist stage OLS regression where Democracy is regressed on WAVE and
baseline covariates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
7.2 Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and liberal institu-
tions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
7.3 Continued: Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and lib-
eral institutions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.4 Continued: Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and lib-
eral institutions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
7.5 Continued: Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and lib-
eral institutions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
7.6 Continued: Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and lib-
eral institutions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.7 Continued: Comparing predictions (for onset cases) from baseline and lib-
eral institutions models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.1 Matching EPR to Ethnographic Atlas: Matched cases by matching criteria 205
8.2 OLS estimates of associations between Pre-colonial Centralization of re-
spondents ethnic group and affirmation of authority of traditional rulers . 207
8.3 Summary stats of main variables used in the paper and in the appendix . 210
8.4 Logit models of ethnic armed conflict onset, controlling for additional group
traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.5 Comparing models run on imputed and unimputed data . . . . . . . . . 216
8.6 Models with influential observations removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
8.7 First-stage reduced form estimates: Pre-colonial CentralizationMEG re-
gressed on Ecological DiversityMEG and covariates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
8.8 IV probit models where Pre-colonial CentralizationMEG is instrumented
by Ecological DiversityMEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8.9 Logit models of ethnic armed conflict onset with group-year as unit of
analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
8.10 Logit models of ethnic armed conflict onset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
8.11 Random intercept logit models of ethnic armed conflict onset with dyad-
year as unit of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
12
9.1 Snippet of dataset matching communal conflicts to EPR groups . . . . . 229
9.2 Logit models of communal conflict using FCI-branches instead of FCI . . 230
9.3 Poisson and negative binomial count models of communal conflict onsets,
1989-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
9.4 Regions and countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
9.5 List of EPR groups involved in communal conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
9.6 Continued: List of EPR groups involved in communal conflict . . . . . . 235
10.1 Factor loadings from a factor analysis with 4 factors . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
10.2 Descriptive statistics (Afrobarometer round 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
10.3 Descriptive statistics (Afrobarometer round 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
10.4 Covariate balance (pre- and post matching), when matching on conflict
history (Afrobarometer round 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.5 Covariate balance (pre- and post matching), when matching on conflict
history (Afrobarometer round 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.6 Table 1 above replicated with Poisson models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
10.7 Dropping the most intense conflict areas and re-estimating the core models 250
10.8 Dropping low-respondent districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
10.9 Additional control variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
10.10Parsimonious models, round 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
10.11Parsimonious models, round 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
10.12Hurdle model, round 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
10.13Logit models of survey-location (unit-of-analysis=PRIO-GRID cells) . . . 259
10.14Core models, with survey-risk as a covariate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
11.1 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption experience without random intercepts 268
11.2 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption experience without random intercepts 269
11.3 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption experience without random intercepts 270
11.4 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption experience with different lag lengths 271
11.5 GLS and 2SLSmodels of corruption perceptions with different lag lengths 272
11.6 GLS and 2SLS models of trust in institutions with different lag lengths . 273
11.7 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption experience w/post-treatment bias can-
didates removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
11.8 GLS and 2SLS models of corruption perceptions w/post-treatment bias
candidates removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
11.9 GLS and 2SLS models of trust in institutions w/post-treatment bias can-
didates removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
11.10GLS and 2SLS models of experienced corruption, with casualties instead
of event counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.11GLS and 2SLS models of corruption perceptions, with casualties instead
of event counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
11.12GLS and 2SLS models of trust in institutions, with casualties instead of
event counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
13
11.13GLS models investigating effect of long-term conflict on institutional qual-
ity items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
11.14Random-intercept GLS models investigating conditional effects: Interac-
tions with homeland of excluded ethnic group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.15Random-intercept GLS models investigating conditional effects: Interac-
tions with log distance to capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
11.16GLS models with region-fixed effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
11.17Countries included in the surveys and number of respondents . . . . . . . 284
14
Tore Wig 1
1University of Oslo and Peace Research Institute Oslo, PRIO, email: [email protected]
Acknowledgements
If this thesis has a bumper sticker, it must surely be “institutions matter”. When this
document is printed I will have spent close to ten years of my life in the institution that
is the University of Oslo. To say that this institution has mattered to me would be a
huge understatement. I will therefore start by acknowledging the University of Oslo, and
the Department of Political Science, for shaping me into a walking piece of evidence for
beneficial institutional effects.
A long list of people have contributed directly or indirectly to this work, and deserve
to be mentioned.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisers, H̊avard and Carl Henrik,
who have been the most important contributors to my development as a political scientist
and to the completion of this thesis. H̊avard was the one who first trusted my abilities
as a researcher, and hired me at PRIO. He was the first one to encourage me to do a
PhD, and he has supported me ever since. Without him, I would never have gotten into
conflict research, or gone the (informal) “PRIO school” that has been so crucial to my
development as a researcher. Carl Henrik has been my indispensable go-to guy at UiO.
If it had not been for him, I would never have learned how to get stuff published, or
thrived as well as I have at the department. You have both provided me with excellent
guidance, and – perhaps more importantly – served as role models and facilitators. You
have introduced me to the people, high standards, methods, and mindsets of the world
class political science community you are both important contributors to. You have both
been great supervisors, friends, and collaborators. I owe you a great debt!
Two institutions have served as my academic homes. My primary home has been the
Department of Political Science at UiO, and my second has been the Peace Research Insti-
tute Oslo, PRIO. From the UiO, I would like to mention the long list of senior colleagues
who have provided me with inspiration and guidance throughout these years; Bjørn Høy-
land, Jostein Askim, Raino Malnes, Elin Allern, Øyvind Østerud, Øivind Bratberg, Jon
Hovi, Dag Einar Thorsen, Anders Jupsk̊as, Arild Underdal, H̊avard Strand, Helge Holter-
mann, Kim Angell, and Robert Huseby. Credit also goes to the excellent group of fellow
Phd-students and friends that I have studied with. You have all contributed to a great
working environment.
At PRIO, I would like to thank all the brilliant researchers that have been such an
inspiration to me, and without which I would never have learned how to do conflict
research properly: Gudrun Østby, Ragnhild Nord̊as, Helga Malmin Binningsbø, Halvard
Buhaug, Scott Gates, Siri Aas Rustad, Øysten Rolandsen, Marianne Dahl, Jeff Checkel,
H̊avard Mokleiv Nyg̊ard, Nils Petter Gleditsch, Jonas Nordkvelle, Kristian Gleditsch,
Andreas Tollefsen, Ida Rudolfsen, Idunn Kristiansen, and Henrik Urdal. I would also like
to thank Cathrine Bye, for making me feel at home at PRIO.
In this project, and others, I have collaborated with a number of excellent scholars
and colleagues. In this respect, I would like to thank Espen Geelmuyden Rød, Sirianne
Dahlum, H̊avard Nyg̊ard, Carl Henrik, Marianne Dahl, Daniela Kromrey, Andreas Forø
Tollefsen, Øyvind Stiansen, Andreas Kotsadam, Eivind Hammersmark Olsen, Pat Regan,
John Gerring, Magnus Rasmussen, and Øyvind Skorge, for collaborating with me on
various projects.
Several people have been important to this project through providing comments at
presentations and after reading through parts of the manuscript. I would especially like
to thank the PRIOites mentioned above, all of whom have provided comments on various
papers I have presented at PRIO brownbags. I would also like to thank Øyvind Østerud,
Bjørn Høyland, H̊avard Strand, Olav Schram Stokke, Andreas Hvidsten, Silje Lyder
Hermannsen, Vibeke Wøien Hansen, Tatjana Stankovic, Kacper Szulecki, Nils Weidmann,
Hanne Fjelde, Nynke Salverda, Henning Finseraas, Cristina Bucur, Helge Holtermann,
Sabine Otto, Espen Geelmuyden Rød, Magnus Rasmussen, Nina Von Uexkull, Kristian
Gleditsch, Kristin Bakke, Svend Erik Skaaning, Agnes Cornell, Jørgen Møller, Merethe
Bech Seeberg, Jose Antonio Cheibub, Fenja Søndergaard Møller, Jacob Tolstrup, and
Lasse Lykke Rørbæk for commenting on one or more of the different articles comprising
this thesis on various occasions. I would especially like to thank my good friends Emil
Aas Stoltenberg, Magnus Rasmussen, Øyvind Skorge and Sirianne Dahlum for reading
and providing detailed comments on parts of this manuscript at different stages.
I would never have survived 10 years at UiO without intellectual companions and close
friends. In this respect, I want to thank my great political science classmates; Aksel, Emil,
Per Anders, Anders J., Øyvind, Magnus, Lars Petter, Ørjan, Alf, and Rune. Although
we are no longer formally students, we will never stop studying together. The same goes
for fellow Blindern-travelers and close childhood friends, André Anundsen and Anders
Solli Sal, who got bitten by the academia bug together with me when we started at the
University (and are still affected). I would also like to thank all of my close friends from
Grenland who have stuck with me and kept it real from high-school through university.
You know who you are.
Importantly, I want to thank my closest family; St̊ale (brother), Grethe (mom), and
Bjarne (dad), who have all encouraged me and supported me in all of my pursuits. None
of this would have been possible without you! Finally, I owe a debt to my harshest critic,
fellow researcher, closest friend, biggest fan (?), traveling buddy, and girlfriend, Sirianne,
4
who is more important to this project and me than I can do justice to in these pages.
Working on this thesis would have been lonely without you.
5
1 Institutions and Civil Peace in Weak States
1.1 Introduction
Somewhere close to a million people have been killed in internal armed conflicts worldwide
since the end of the cold war (Petterson, 2014a). The indirect costs are equally severe,
as internal conflicts have large detrimental effects on human development (Gates et al.,
2012).1 Even if organized violence has been decreasing worldwide (Pinker, 2011), it is
still one of the greatest global threats to human well-being.
One often proposed cure to this global burden is the development of political institu-
tions that promote peace through accountability and good governance. According to this
argument, currently conflict-prone countries such as Nigeria, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan,
could lower their risk of civil war if they became sufficiently well governed and demo-
cratic, thereby entering a “civil peace” induced by pacifying national institutions (Hegre
and Nyg̊ard, 2014; Hegre et al., 2001; Walter, 2014). This dissertation shows that this
institutional civil-peace argument needs updating. The argument is partly right in that
political institutions matter for conflict. However, in many of the world’s most conflict-
prone developing nations, state institutions have a limited geographical and substantive
reach, making their descriptive features unrepresentative of institutions on the ground.
The situation in many conflict-ridden countries is akin to that described by a senior gov-
ernment official in the Central African Republic, remarking that “the State stops at PK
12, twelve kilometers from the capital, Bangui” (Herbst, 2000, 139).
I will show that the current focus on national institutions as solutions to the problem
of armed conflict misses much of the subnational institutional variation that matters.
In the following chapters, I demonstrate that the quality, accountability, strengths, and
capacities of subnational institutions contribute significantly to civil peace, drawing on
evidence from Africa. Consequently, I propose that in neglecting the subnational level, the
1A country suffering from a medium-sized conflict, causing around 2500 battle deaths, is estimated toexperience an increase in infant mortality rate of 10%, and a 3.3% reduction in average life expectancyas a result (Gates et al., 2012).
state-centric orientation of the institutional civil-peace argument overlooks the political
institutions most central to peace in the developing world.
A state of civil peace is a situation where societal actors with conflict potential reach
non-violent bargained solutions to differing interests rather than engage in fighting. The
thesis highlights how two kinds of subnational political institutions contribute to such
a state. One part of the thesis considers the customary institutions that often organize
ethnic groups in Africa. A second part studies the role of formal local government insti-
tutions, like municipalities, regional governments, and local bureaucracies. Formal local
government institutions are the local representatives of the modern state, while custom-
ary institutions (often) are the contemporary remnants of pre-colonial states and empires.
The main claim of the thesis is that the quality and strength of these two kinds of subna-
tional institutions contribute significantly to local civil peace in Africa. Building on this,
I argue that subnational institutions should matter more in weak-state contexts such as
in Africa where state institutions often have a poor reach (Herbst, 2000). To investigate
these claims, I utilize two datasets on customary institutions compiled from ethnographic
data and expert surveys, and two datasets using georeferenced survey data to measure the
quality of formal local government institutions. These datasets have never before been
used to study internal conflict. Consequently, I present one of the first comprehensive
and systematic attempts to study subnational customary and formal local government
institutions in relation to internal conflict.
Each part of the thesis provides an independent supporting argument for the general
claim that subnational institutions contribute to civil peace, and that these are particu-
larly important in states with weak institutions such as in most African countries. First, I
demonstrate the limits of the institutional civil peace argument when it comes to predict-
ing civil conflict at the national level. This happens in Chapter 2, where I present a novel
take on empirically evaluating the links between national political institutions and civil
peace. The chapter investigates whether liberal institutional attributes like democracy,
quality of government and rule of law, are able to predict civil conflict out of sample. Cru-
cially, I examine which countries the institutional-civil-peace model can predict well and
which countries it has trouble with. This analysis shows that the democracy-autocracy
dimension and institutional-quality aspects perform particularly poorly when it comes to
predicting conflict in states with weakly consolidated institutions. In doing so, I outline
some of the limitations of the national-level approach to the institutions-conflict link,
making the case that this might reflect the low saliency of national institutions in de-
veloping countries with weakly consolidated national institutions. This chapter sets the
stage for the subsequent chapters, motivating a more detailed exploration of the role of
subnational institutions in weak states.
The rest of the thesis takes up this challenge. Chapters 3-4 investigate the role of cus-
tomary institutions in African conflicts, making the claim that historically centralized and
highly institutionalized customary institutions reduce conflict by facilitating bargaining
between ethnic groups. Chapter 3 focuses on the historical institutions of ethnic groups,
demonstrating that groups with historically centralized customary institutions are less
8
prone to ethnic civil wars. Chapter 4 uses contemporary data on the customary insti-
tutions of ethnic groups to show how the presence of formalized customary institutions
at the local level, like customary courts, houses of chiefs and legislative councils, reduces
the involvement of ethnic groups in communal conflicts.
Although this part of the thesis presents robust evidence that customary institutions
shape the conditions for ethnic conflict, these customary institutions exist alongside for-
mal local government institutions whose quality and organization also matter for civil
peace in Africa. This brings us to chapters 5-6, which exclusively look at the role of
formal local government institutions in African conflicts. Chapter 5 investigates the rela-
tionship between subnational institutional quality and local conflict violence, presenting
evidence for a “local civil peace” whereby administrative districts with high-quality local
institutions are less prone to conflict. In this context, a clear threat to inferences attribut-
ing a causal effect of institutions is the possibility of reverse causality, which would be
the case if conflict affected institutional development. Chapter 6 investigates the impor-
tance of this reverse-causality threat as it relates to formal local government institutions
and conflict. This chapter demonstrates that the effects of conflict on local institutional
development are less grave than expected. While exposure to local conflict violence has
marginal effects on citizens’ trust in institutions, it does not have any detrimental effects
on more objective institutional parameters like experiences with local corruption. This
suggests that the root causes of local institutional quality are much deeper than what can
be explained by contemporary conflict levels. Together, Chapters 2-6 form a unified pic-
ture supporting the contention that the quality and strength of subnational institutions,
both customary and formal, matter for creating civil peace at the local level in Africa,
and perhaps even more so than national-level institutions.
The bulk of the chapters (3 through 6) study conflict in Africa. This is partly due to
data availability. The African continent is where the subnational institutional variety of
the kind mentioned above is arguably the most prevalent. It is also where we find most of
the available sources for constructing datasets to capture this variety. Furthermore, the
African continent represents a cluster of countries with weakly consolidated institutions
with a short geographical reach (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2014; Herbst, 2000),
where the subnational variation in institutions should be expected to matter more. In
states recovering from colonization where state-building has not yet led to institutional
consolidation is where we would expect to find a) a myriad of surviving political entities
with their own institutions existing alongside central governments, and b) the largest
subnational variation in attributes of local government institutions.
This contrasts with regions such as Europe and North America, where the process of
state building has taken its course. In such settings, the attributes of nation-states should
play a larger role in conflict reduction than in weakly consolidated states. For example,
we would not expect the successors to historical polities with roots prior to the formation
of modern states to matter for (the absence of) civil conflict in Europe today. While pre-
state institutions, like the various kingdoms populating the Holy Roman Empire until its
dissolution in 1806, played a large role in European conflicts prior to the rise of territorial
9
states (Spruyt, 1996), they are no longer as consequential. However, in parts of the world
where the state-building process is more recent, mainly due to the crippling impacts of
colonialism, remnants of pre-colonial institutions are still present and play a role in civil
conflict. Hence, studying subnational institutions in Africa is necessary, both to assess
the institutional causes of peace in these countries, and because these are the only settings
in which we will observe this degree of subnational institutional variation in institutions.
This makes Africa a crucial case for the argument proposed in this thesis.
Several policy implications flow from the findings and arguments presented below.
Primarily, in contrast to many arguments made in the institutions-conflict literature (e.g.,
Walter, 2014; Hegre and Nyg̊ard, 2014; Hegre et al., 2001), the studies indicate that simply
trying to “fix” national institutions, for example by improving the quality of national
governance, or introducing free and fair elections, might not be the best institutional
cure for civil conflict in places where national institutions are weakly consolidated and
subnational institutions might matter more. In contrast to much literature highlighting
the negative role played by local authorities in African politics (Mamdani, 1996), and to
those highlighting that rule by customary rulers could increase conflict risk (Eck, 2014),
this thesis emphasizes that these institutions are central to sustaining local civil peace
in Africa. Consequently, a state-building process that undermines local authorities, like
local customary institutions, might be dangerous precisely because it removes some of
the institutional frameworks that contribute to local civil peace.
1.1.1 Crucial definitions
In section 1.3, I discuss the conceptual framework of the thesis in detail. However, I
provide some brief definitions of key concepts here, to make the subsequent discussions
more precise. First, by institutions, I mean “the patterns of interactions that govern and
constrain the relationships of individuals” (North, Wallis and Weingast, 2009, 15), with
emphasis on the formal and informal rules governing political interactions.
Second, in defining customary institutions, I emphasize that these are institutional
structures that organize ethnic groups. These structures often descend from, and are
similar to, pre-colonial political systems, whose “legitimacy is rooted in history – either
real or invented – and culture” Ubink (2008a, 8). Hence, customary institutions are
founded on traditional authority with reference to an established past. Furthermore,
what distinguishes customary institutions from other traditional institutions, such as
for example the Catholic church, is that they are institutions that function as political
systems for the ethnic groups organized in these institutions, where a political system is
conceived as “any persistent pattern of human relationship that involves, to a significant
extent power, rule or authority” (Dahl, 1964, 6).
I also focus on formal local government institutions, that are here defined as public
and formal political institutions representing the modern state at the local level. These
will typically be the institutions governing formal administrative units below the nation
state, such as municipalities, regional governments and city councils. Local government
10
institutions are the local manifestations of the institutions of the modern state, while cus-
tomary institutions commonly have independent pre-colonial roots. I shall therefore treat
local government institutions and customary institutions as separate, while recognizing
that they often will matter for the same constituents. However, it is important to note
that the lines between customary authorities and formal local government institutions
are often quite fluid. In many parts of Africa, as will be discussed below, the power that
is commonly vested in local formal government institutions is delegated to traditional
rulers. Moreover, customary leaders will in many cases blend in with formal government
authorities, for example when customary chiefs are also elected councilors in local formal
government institutions.
Finally, the outcomes studied below all sort under the general heading of internal
armed conflict. I will here loosely follow the standard UCDP-PRIO definition (Gleditsch
et al., 2002), and define internal armed conflict very broadly, as a militarized violent
confrontation between two organized actors fighting over some contested incompatibil-
ity. Although I focus on different manifestations of civil conflict throughout the thesis,
from classic instances of rebel vs. government civil war, to non-state communal conflicts
between ethnic groups, these distinctions between conflict types are not of fundamental
importance to the arguments in the thesis (for further discussion, see section 1.5).
The structure of this chapter is as follows. In the next section (1.2), I place my
contribution in the broader literature and make the case for the subnational approach
advocated throughout the thesis. I will here argue for the special role of subnational
institutions in weak states, discuss the African case in light of this, and present two case
examples that illustrate the main arguments. Section 1.3 presents the conceptual frame-
work of the thesis, discussing institutions, their attributes, and other concepts relevant
to the thesis in greater detail. Section 1.4 presents the explanatory framework of the
thesis, outlining the role that subnational institutions can play in reducing the risk of
conflict. Section 1.5 discusses my approach to measuring subnational institutions and
conflict. In section 1.6, I discuss how we can draw inferences regarding the pacifying role
of subnational institutions, with a focus on the philosophical approach to explanation and
inference taken in the thesis, as well as the general methodological approach advocated.
Finally, I present the structure of the thesis, in section 1.7, before discussing implications
and policy recommendations in section 1.8.
1.2 The institutional causes of conflict: The case for
a subnational approach
The questions asked in this thesis tie into a larger debate concerning which political in-
stitutional structures are conducive to internal peace. This debate has deep historical
roots. In Politics, Aristotle mused over the causes of revolution under different forms
of government, suggesting that both Oligarchies, Democracies, Aristocracies and Tyran-
nies were likely to experience internal upheavals whenever a mismatch arose between the
11
distribution of political power and the distribution of economic power (Aristotle, 2000).2
The institutional cure for conflict is also a prominent question in post-classical political
theory. Thomas Hobbes (in)famously proposed a strongly centralized Leviathan as a so-
lution to the problem of internal violence (Hobbes, 1651/1968), while Locke prescribed
a more limited form of constitutional rule (Locke, 1689/1988). These debates have con-
tinued in contemporary political science, where the aim is to evaluate the institutional
causes of internal conflict using the methods and toolbox of modern science.
As in Aristotle’s theory of revolution, the primary focus in the contemporary literature
on institutions and conflict has been on regime type, and how different forms of government
affect the risk of civil war. An important strand of this discussion revolves around whether
democracy pacifies. Some arguments imply that more inclusive political regimes should
be less prone to conflict than others, for example through creating political legitimacy
that reduces popular grievances (Gurr, 1970), or by providing institutional guarantees
for the redistribution of wealth (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006). These views suggest
a monotonic relationship between democracy and civil war, whereby higher levels of
democracy yield less conflict.
The most popular take on the democracy-civil conflict relationship, however, is the so
called “inverted-u curve” expectation. This proposes that regimes that are “inconsistently
democratic”, like present-day Nigeria, which combines competitive elections and substan-
tial restrictions on both civil liberties and political rights (see e.g., Freedom House, 2015),
are most likely to experience civil war. Meanwhile, consolidated democracies, like Den-
mark, and consolidated autocracies, like Saudi Arabia, should experience fewer internal
conflicts (Hegre et al., 2001; Muller and Weede, 1990). What gives rise to this expecta-
tion is the notion that harshly authoritarian regimes should have the ability to repress
potential dissidents enough to prevent an uprising, while consolidated democracies should
allow opposition groups to peacefully voice and negotiate demands through democratic
channels. In short, violence is too costly in the autocratic end of the spectrum, while
non-violent opposition is cheap and effective in the democratic end. Although the ini-
tial evidence for the inverted-u association was strong (Hegre et al., 2001), it has been
criticized for hinging on biases in the democracy measure used (Vreeland, 2008), and
insufficient attention to measurement error (Treier and Jackman, 2008).3 However, the
association remains in analyses where the criticism of coding bias is accounted for (e.g.,
Gleditsch, Hegre and Strand, 2009; Regan and Bell, 2010).
While arguments concerning the inverted-u curve are mostly about how levels of
democracy relate to conflict, some argue that democratic transitions are dangerous. Some
attribute this to the sudden increase in political participation in settings where institu-
tional prerequisites for peaceful political competition – like the rule of law or an impartial
bureaucracy – are lacking (Huntington, 1968; Linz and Stepan, 1996). Others argue that
2For a precise statement of this interpretation of Aristotle‘s theory of revolution, see Kort (1952).3Another important caveat to the u-curve is presented in Gleditsch and Ruggeri (2010), who find that
once controlling for opportunity structures – proxied by recent irregular leader removal – the monotonicrelationship between democracy and civil conflict reappears.
12
democratization is conflict-inducing because of commitment problems and strategic un-
certainty (Przeworski, 1991; Kalyvas, 2000), while many highlight that transition periods
are particularly vulnerable to ethnic-mobilization dynamics that lead to ethnic conflict
(Snyder, 2000; Mansfield and Snyder, 2005).
A significant number of contributions have looked at other institutional aspects than
democracy. Some studies have focused on the presence of “consociational” power-sharing
institutions that protect ethnic minorities (e.g., Hartzell and Hoddie, 2007; Gates et al.,
2013), primarily building on the work of Lijphart (1999, 1977, 1969). More recent studies
have emphasized aspects related to quality of government, like a well-functioning bu-
reaucracy and the rule of law (Hegre and Nyg̊ard, 2014; Fearon, 2011; Taydas, Peksen
and James, 2010; Walter, 2014). Scholars focusing on quality of government argue that it
reduces conflict-inducing grievances (Hegre and Nyg̊ard, 2014), and diminishes opportuni-
ties for conflict through improving state capacity (e.g., Taydas, Peksen and James, 2010).
It has also been hypothesized that quality of government matters by solving bargaining
problems (Walter, 2014).
The broad strokes of this literature reveals the contours of what I call an institutional
civil-peace argument, where states that are consistently democratic and well-governed
should be the least prone to conflict. This argument is commonly supported by either
of three general “meta-theories” concerning how institutions cause conflict, that each ap-
pear in the works surveyed above. Although these will be discussed further in section
1.4 below, they deserve brief mention here. One perspective emphasizes that political
institutions can cause conflict in so far as they create political grievances and feelings of
injustice that motivate rebellion (Gurr, 1970; Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhaug, 2013).
The “opportunity” perspective claims that institutions should cause violence if they en-
gender opportunities for rebel activity (Fearon and Laitin, 2003), exemplified by most of
the arguments for the“inverse u-curve”(e.g., Hegre et al., 2001). Finally, others emphasize
that institutions are devices for solving commitment problems, highlighting that institu-
tions that enshrine power sharing (Walter, 2002), high quality of government (Walter,
2014), or democracy (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006) will allow actors to more credibly
distribute gains and losses in ways that would avoid war.
Although the studies and arguments surveyed here represent very important contribu-
tions to the study of which institutional arrangements increase the risk of internal conflict,
the field seems to have reached a plateau from which progress appears to be much slower.4
In spite of the high explanatory power of the argument that inclusive political institu-
tions and quality of government promotes peace, several key questions are insufficiently
explored. First, and importantly for this thesis, we do not know whether the statistical
associations identified, for example the inverse u-curve association, are general and robust
relationships that allow us to predict conflict in diverse settings. If the institutional civil
peace thesis is a robust general explanation for civil conflict, it should allow us to pre-
4The studies mentioned use many of the same data sets, and many of the investigations resemble eachother. Hence, there is only so much more we can learn from the next cross-country time-series study ofcivil conflict, using the same measures of institutional characteristics like regime-type and power sharing.
13
dict civil conflict across a range of spatio-temporal contexts, and, crucially, it should be
able to predict “unseen” cases that have not been used for establishing the relationships
asserted by the theory.5 Furthermore, we do not know whether the institutional argu-
ments for conflict can “travel” to incorporate other institutions than those at the national
level. For example, whether these arguments yield implications that are validated at the
subnational level. Finally, the possibility that the effects of national institutions might
be conditional on the reach of these national institutions, which is suggested in studies
of economic growth (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2014), is rarely entertained.
These considerations hint at a more fundamental gap in the literature on political
institutions and civil peace, and an unexplored alternative to the institutional civil peace
argument. Namely, that too little attention has been devoted to other institutions than
national ones in contexts where national institutions are weak and unrepresentative of
the institutional variation on the ground in developing countries. I will now go on to
develop this argument, making the case for a novel civil-peace research agenda focusing on
subnational institutions in weak states. In doing so, I will present Africa as a particularly
suited case for the implementation of such a project.
1.2.1 Subnational institutions in weak states: Beyond method-
ological statism
While many research areas in conflict research have moved towards disaggregation from
the national to the subnational level (for an overview, see Gleditsch, Metternich and Rug-
geri, 2014), the brand of conflict research looking at the effects of political institutions has
not.6 It is still almost exclusively focused on the institutions of nation-states. There are
several reasons why this focus should be reoriented towards investigating the institutional
causes of peace at the subnational level.
First, there are examples from related sub-fields within conflict research indicating
the potential benefits of disaggregation. Disaggregating to subnational units has yielded
significant returns, for example in investigations of the economic correlates of civil conflicts
(e.g., Buhaug et al., 2011; Hegre, Østby and Raleigh, 2009).7 This is due to a realization
of the dictum that “all politics is local” (Rustad et al., 2011). Indeed, civil war, like many
other phenomena has origins and dynamics that are essentially local in origin (Rustad
et al., 2011). For example, even if national GDP per capita indicates a low risk of conflict,
a country might have particularly poor regions whose income levels dispose for conflict
in contrast to the national average (e.g., Buhaug et al., 2011). Furthermore, it might
be precisely those groups residing in regions that are richer or poorer than the country
5There is some indication that the democracy-autocracy dimension predicts relatively poorly out ofsample (Ward, Greenhill and Bakke, 2010), which might suggest that it describes a specific group ofcountries and not others.
6See also the special issue of Journal of Conflict Resolution on“Disaggregating Civil War”’ (Cedermanand Gleditsch, 2009).
7This has partly been a response to the very large number of studies having investigated this associ-ation at the national level (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; Miguel, Satyanath and Serengeti, 2004)
14
average that will resort to violence (Cederman, Weidmann and Gleditsch, 2011). In these
cases, exclusively looking at national GDP increases the threat of ecological fallacies.
In light of this, disaggregation has resulted in much firmer conclusions regarding, for
example, the relationship between poverty and conflict (e.g., Buhaug et al., 2011).
Given that subnational disaggregation has been a largely successful endeavor, why
has it not taken place in the study of the institutions-conflict link, and why does this
matter?8 First, one obvious answer is that many institutions by definition only exist at
national levels. It makes little sense, for example, to investigate the effects of democratic
regime-type on the risk of civil war onset using subnational administrative districts as
units of analyses. This is because democratic regime types by definition exist at the
national level.9 A second reason is a lack of data describing subnational institutional
variation.
In spite of these caveats, there are several reasons why disaggregation should nev-
ertheless be pursued in studies of political institutions and conflict. The main reason
highlighted here is substantive. Disaggregation it allows us to study the role of subna-
tional institutions in the contexts where attributes of national institutions might matter
less for conflict. There are several reasons why we should expect this to be the case. In
states with weakly consolidated national institutions, attributes of these institutions will
not describe areas where national level institutions have no reach. In Africa, coloniz-
ers primarily focused on ruling their capitals, commonly located at the coast, governing
through local customary authorities in the periphery (Mamdani, 1996). As emphasized
by Africa scholars, this lack of centralization has persisted, partly due to the colonial
heritage, but also due to geographies that make political centralization difficult (Herbst,
2000; Mamdani, 1996). Recent large-n studies support the contention that national insti-
tutions in Africa have a short reach. In a recent study, Michalopoulos and Papaioannou
(2014) use satellite night-time light density as a proxy for local economic growth, find-
ing that the effect of national institutional quality on regional development decays with
distance from the capital. They find that for approximately 60% of their sample (of
ethnic-group homelands), features of national institutions, measured by several World
Governance Indicators (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi, 2009), essentially have no ef-
fect on local economic development. This is evidence suggesting the poor reach of national
institutions in Africa. The statement by the bureaucrat in CAR (quoted above), that ”the
State stops at PK 12”, might apply to more countries than the Central African Republic.
If national institutions have a poor reach in weak states, like those found in Africa,
we must move beyond studying how national institutional attributes shape conflict risk.
8An exception is the emerging literature looking at the institutional consequences of conflict (e.g.,Bellows and Miguel, 2009; Voors and Bulte, 2014; Gilligan, Pasquale and Samii, 2014; Voors et al.,2012), which will be the subject of chapter 6. These studies are not extensively reviewed here, since theyare not about how institutions condition conflict, but the reverse causal relationship.
9Although one could investigate the more abstract question of whether inclusive political structures ingeneral breed less violence by looking at subnational variations in the inclusiveness of local government,the fact that many political institutions, in certain respects, only exist (by definition) at the nationallevel has probably halted disaggregation in this part of the literature.
15
Crucially, we must understand the role of local institutions. But what kind of local
institutions? In the following, I discuss local-level institutional variation in Africa as a
particularly illustrative example of the relationship between a weak state consolidation
and subnational institutions.
Variations in subnational institutions: The case of Africa
One dimension of subnational institutional variation that this thesis considers is the
customary institutions of ethnic groups, descending from pre-colonial political systems.
During colonialism, African states were constructed on top of a plethora of pre-existing
polities, a majority of which have survived in various forms up until the present day.
pre-colonial kingdoms like the Zulu kingdom, Ashanti empire or the state of Buganda
are notable examples. Unlike European nations, which have grown endogenously, and
whose borders have been chiseled out by millennia of warfare and migration (Kitamura
and Lagerlöf, 2015), most contemporary African states are modern constructs, layered
on top of “preexisting political institutions, underlying norms of political behavior, and
customary sources of political authority” (Englebert, 2000, 5).
These pre-colonial political systems, described as customary or pre-colonial institu-
tions in this thesis, have been shown to play a significant role in contemporary African
politics. Some highlight their detrimental effects. Eck (2014) argues that customary
political systems within states create competing legal jurisdictions that increase the risk
of communal conflicts. Furthermore, Englebert (2000) argues that the existence of pre-
colonial states within artificially constructed borders have caused a legitimacy deficit for
national institutions, resulting in poor institutional quality and low economic develop-
ment. In this account, poor state capacity in Africa is partly endogenous to the existence
of pre-colonial political structures within artificially constructed borders.
Regardless of the role of pre-colonial polities in creating state weakness, the fact that
African national institutions are exceptionally weak (see e.g., Herbst, 2000) has allowed
these customary political systems to play a major role as institutional structures beneath
the state (see also Migdal, 1988). Accordingly, much recent work has documented the
significant impact that pre-colonial states have on contemporary economic growth in their
traditional homelands (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2015, 2013, 2014). Others have
highlighted the role of customary chiefs in local public goods provision (Baldwin, 2013),
and their role as arbiters in resource- and land management (Boone, 2003, 2014). The
resilience of these institutions is attested by the significant degree of popular support that
they still enjoy (Logan, 2013).
A representation of the variety in pre-colonial polities in Africa can be found in fig-
ure 1.1 which shows the ethnographic map of Murdock (1967) – discussed at length in
Chapter 3 – where each polygon represents a pre-colonial polity, as these are described
in the comparative ethnographic data collected by Murdock (1967). This map, although
arguably subject to some measurement error (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2015),
shows the immense variety in pre-colonial polities existing before the creation of modern
16
African states. Many of these polities have survived in the form of customary authorities
at the local level. Visible manifestations of the persistence of customary political systems
can be found in the traditional legislatures, courts, kings and houses of chiefs that mark
the institutional landscape in Africa. This thesis highlights the importance of studying
the role of these customary institutions in civil conflicts, which will be the subject of
chapters 3 and 4.
Figure 1.1: Murdock’s ethnographic map of pre-colonial polities in Africa
Another source of subnational variation in Africa is the variation in formal local
government institutions. As is frequently noted (e.g., Rustad et al., 2011), conflicts in
the developing world are often distinctly local phenomena, that haunt particular regions
rather than entire countries. Northern Nigeria, northern Uganda, or the Kivu region in the
DRC, are all contemporary examples of regions that are significantly more conflict prone
than the countries they are part of, hosting the Boko Haram, Lord‘s Resistance Army,
and the M23 insurgencies respectively. There is also significant subnational variation
in attributes, and particularly in the quality, of formal local government institutions in
Africa.
An illustrative example of this pattern can be seen in the Afrobarometer surveys (Afro-
barometer, 2008). Chapter 4 maps survey responses in the Afrobarometer to administra-
tive districts, using aggregate responses (at the district level) as proxies for institutional
17
Table 1.1: Survey items capturing perceptions of local institutional quality from theAfrobarometer survey (round 4)
Survey question R2 attributed tocountry-specific effects (Afrobarometer round 4)
Experienced corruption .23Police corrupt .51Local authorities corrupt .43Trust police .37Trust local authorities .38Trust courts .39
The items used will be described in greater detail in chapters 4 and 5, as well as in the appendices tothese chapters.
quality. Using these data, table 1.1 (below) considers responses tapping institutional
quality from this dataset, using items from round 4 of the Afrobarometer survey. The
table shows how much of the variance in survey items (tapping institutional quality) that
is accounted for by country level factors (a set of country dummies). The items register
experiences with corruption, perceptions of corruption among the police and other local
authorities, trust in police and other local authorities, and trust in courts. Table 1.1
displays the R2 yielded by country dummies when modeling these items. We see that
that even if national-level factors explain a substantial amount, the highest R2 being .51,
country-level factors commonly account for less than half of the district-level variation in
perceived and experienced institutional quality. This indicates the importance of looking
at variation in subnational institutions in Africa.
Drawing inference based on African cases
As noted, there are substantive reasons for investigating subnational institutions in the
context of weak states, and Africa is the best candidate for doing this. However, there are
several external validity issues related to generalizing from such a study. First, a clear
limitation is that Africa-based inferences might only be valid for contexts where there
are weak national-level institutions, or, in the worst case, only for Africa. It should be
explicitly noted that I do not expect subnational institutions to matter as much in fully
consolidated states, such as those found in most OECD countries.
A more subtle concern is that studying these institutions in weak states can be seen as
selection on the dependent variable. After all, state weakness and lack of state building
is probably both an outcome and a cause of conflict, meaning that the subnational level
is partly relevant because of factors that yield a high risk of conflict. In other words, the
very fact that these institutions matter is because these societies are particularly conflict
prone.
Nevertheless, I believe there are important theoretical lessons to be learned from
disaggregation. Even if many of the findings are not directly translatable to other contexts
18
than the weak-state situation studied, or perhaps not even translatable to contexts outside
of Africa, the studies presented below yield many general insights that are of theoretical
significance, and that, importantly, add to the general empirical content of the theories
applied. For example, Chapter 5 investigates implications of general theories relating
to how institutional quality should promote civil peace – commonly tested on country-
year data (e.g., Hegre and Nyg̊ard, 2014) – on subnational data. Since the arguments
relating institutional quality to civil peace at the country level also imply that local
institutional quality should reduce the prevalence of local conflict (see Chapter 5 for a
survey), investigating this proposition yields an additional piece of evidence in favor of
those theories.
Another example can be found in chapters 3 and 4, where I draw on bargaining theory
(Fearon, 1995) to generate many of the expectations. In these cases, empirical support
for these hypotheses add to the empirical support for bargaining theory more generally.
Moreover, in Chapter 4 I explicitly set out to test general institutional explanations for
war developed for intra- and inter-state conflicts, on the customary institutions of ethnic
groups in Africa and their involvement in communal conflicts. In this case, the specific
inferences relating to the customary institutions of ethnic groups have low external valid-
ity because of the peculiarities of African customary institutions. However, the findings
add to the strength of the overarching theories tested, since the fact that implications of a
general theory hold in a novel context yields additional empirical support. The fact that
most theories applied in this thesis is developed in other contexts, like theories relating
to institutions and international conflict, adds to the strength of the general theoretical
inferences drawn from each study.10
To recap, I maintain that conflict researchers interested in how institutions shape
conflict outcomes in weak states need to study subnational institutions. Before discussing
the conceptual, empirical and methodological tools I will use to put this appeal into action,
I briefly discuss two concrete cases that illustrate the arguments made in the thesis.11
1.2.2 Customary institutions: Ashanti in Ghana
One example of a pre-colonial polity that has persevered into modern times is the Ashanti
kingdom in Ghana. Prior to colonization Ashanti had developed into an empire, with
a centralized government, a judiciary, a bureaucracy, police force and diplomatic corps
(Edgerton, 2010). Indeed, Ashanti resembled many of the young European states of
the eighteenth and nineteenth century (Morisson, 1983, 450). Many of the structures of
10One of the virtues of testing social scientific theories is to maximize the number of implications ofthe theory under investigation, and to test as many of these implications as possible (King, Keohaneand Verba, 1994, 24,30). If a theory can predict and test entirely novel implications, then this adds tothe truth-content of the theory (for a general statement of this view, see Lakatos, 1980). This points toanother benefit to disaggregation, namely that it presents us with a promising arena for testing additionalimplications from theories previously tested on country-level data. Several parts of the thesis show thisphilosophy in action.
11These cases are included for illustrative purposes, and should not be understood as case studies intheir own right.
19
the Ashanti kingdom have survived. After initially having resisted British colonization
Ashanti became a protectorate of Britain in 1896, and was subsequently incorporated
as a quasi-sovereign state in a state union with Ghana after independence. Although
the Ashanti kingdom has lost many of its formal and de-facto powers in relation to the
Ghanaian state, its key institutions, such as the kingdom, the institution of chieftaincy
and its traditional house of chiefs, all persist and play important roles in local politics in
Ashantiland. For example, traditional Ashanti authorities are instrumental in land man-
agement, conflict mediation, and the adjudication of general disputes and land claims
(e.g., Boone, 2014, 2003; Ubink, 2008b,c; Owusu-Mensah, 2014). In this thesis, I inves-
tigate three expectations regarding traditional institutions and their relation to ethnic
conflict. I will now proceed to illustrate each of them by applying them to the Ashanti
case.
Figure 1.2: Ghana (red border) and contemporary Ashantiland (green border)
ABE ADANGME
ADELE
AJUKRU
AKPOSO
AKYEM
ANA
ANYI
ARI
ASHANTI
ASSINI
ATTIE
ATYUTI
AVATIME
AVIKAMBAKWE
BARGU
BASARI BASILA
BAULE
BETE
BIRIFON
BOBO
BRONG
BUEM
BUILSA BUSA
BUSANSI
CHAKOSSI
DAGARI
DAGOMBA
DENDI
DIAN
DIDA
DIULA
DOROSIE
EBRIE
EGBA
EWE
FANTI
FON
GA
GAGU
GAN
GREBO
GRUNSHI
GUANG
GUIN
GUN
GURENSI
GURMA
GURO IFE
IJEBU
KABRE
KARABORO
KEBU
KILINGAKOMONO KONKOMBA
KRACHI
KULANGOLIGBI, DEGHA (SE)
LILSE
LOBI
MAMPRUSI
MEKYIBO
MINIANKA
MOBA
NAFANA
NAUDEBA
NUNUMA
POPO
RESHE
SENUFO
SIA
SOMBA
TEM
TIENGA
TRIBU
TUSYAN
VAGALA
WABA
WARA
WOBE
YORUBA
First, I argue that customary authorities with a tradition of political centralization,
such as Ashanti, are less likely to experience conflicts with central governments because
they have been able to rely on their historically centralized institutions to reach credible
non-violent bargains with the state (Chapter 3). Although one can not observe a “dog
that did not bark”, meaning a counterfactual conflict that occurred in the absence of
Ashanti institutions, we can observe successful bargaining between Ashanti leaders and
the central Ghanean government, as well as the absence of major conflict between the
two.
20
For example, under British colonial administration the Ashanti were given formal
authority over many aspects of land management, a deal described as “the linchpin of
British indirect rule in Ghana” (Boone, 2014, 215). This endowed power-sharing sta-
tus continued after the end of British rule. For example, the first Chieftaincy act of
1961 assigned a privileged status to Ashanti chiefs, which occurred in spite of president
Kwameh Nkrumah‘s attempts to undermine traditional leaders in Ashantiland (Boone,
2003, 159-163).12 The powers of Ashanti chiefs were further expanded and codified in the
constitution of 1969, the chieftaincy act of 1971, the constitution of 1992 and the recent
chieftaincy act of 2008.
These examples illustrate how successive Ghanean governments have devolved powers
to Ashanti chiefs, mostly concerning land rights (Owusu-Mensah, 2014). A key reason
was that they were seen as credible partners that could command loyalty from the popu-
lations that identified with them (e.g., Boone, 2003). Furthermore, although there have
been many incompatibilities between Ashanti leaders and the Ghanean government, for
example over the control of cocoa production (Boone, 2003, 159-174), there has been no
organized military conflict between the Ashanti ethnic group and Ghana to date.
In Chapter 4, I argue that formal customary institutions, like customary courts and
legislatures, can reduce the likelihood of inter- or intra-group conflict between or within
ethnic groups. I argue that this is because these institutions facilitate credible bargaining
and conflict mediation, between tribes belonging to the same ethnic group, and with out-
side groups. This mechanism is also evident in the case of Ashanti. In a description of the
role of Ashanti chiefs in managing conflicts over land, Boone writes that“chiefs are pivotal
in dispute adjudication” (Boone, 2014, 217). Based on survey data on citizen attitudes
to chiefs in the Ashanti region, Ubink (2008b, 152–154) finds that 78% of respondents
noted “dispute resolution” as a main task of traditional chiefs, and 53% listed “ensuring
peace” as a main task. An example of dispute resolution by Ashanti institutions is given
by Alden Wily (2003, 66), who describes how the Ashanti King intervened as a response
to frustration over a huge backlog of land-dispute cases that had yet to be brought in
front of government courts:13
[T]he King of the Ashanti, who was so frustrated with the failure of the
courts to deal with disputes that he ordered his subjects to remove their cases
from courts and have them resolved by his local chiefs or, failing resolution,
bring them to his central Customary Court. By 2000, all but ten cases had
been resolved.
These anecdotes shed some light on the more general patterns investigated in Chapters
3 and 4, illustrating how Ashanti rulers are seen as credible bargaining partners by the
central government, and how their institutions contribute to dispute adjudication and
conflict resolution locally.
12It is important to note that Ashanti chiefs were given much fewer powers under post-colonial gov-ernments, especially Nkrumah‘s, than under British colonial rule (Boone, 2003, 144-174)
13This is also described in Ubink (2008b, 154)
21
1.2.3 Formal local government institutions: The Boko Haram
insurgency in Nigeria
In this thesis, I claim that areas with poor local institutional quality will be more likely to
experience local conflict violence, because low-quality local government generates political
grievances and low state capacity (Chapter 5). Nigeria is one illustrative example, where
reports suggest a relationship between poor local institutional quality and local conflict.
Some regions are notoriously poorly governed, like the Northern states of Nigeria, which
have become the core of the Boko Haram insurgency. Up until, and during, the Boko
Haram insurgency, northern authorities have been plagued by corruption charges. For
example, in 2010, the head Police Commisioner in the northern state of Borno was caught
embezzling over 100 000 dollars in government money (Human Rights Watch, 2010a, 97),
and the region has been continuously plagued by widespread corruption and extrajudicial
killings (Human Rights Watch, 2012). Many analysts have traced the origins of the Boko
Haram insurgency to the corruption and general incompetence that has characterized
local authorities in the northern states. A Nigerian journalist that has interviewed Boko
Haram leaders, is here quoted in a report by Human Rights Watch:
Corruption became the catalyst for Boko Haram. [Mohammed] Yusuf [the
group‘s first leader] would have found it difficult to gain a lot of these people
if he was operating in a functional state. But his teaching was easily accepted
because the environment, the frustrations, the corruption, [and] the injustice
made it fertile for his ideology to grow fast, very fast, like wildfire. (Human
Rights Watch, 2012, 24)
Boko Haram has both capitalized on the weaknesses of the security forces in the north,
and on citizen’s frustrations with poor governance. The group’s promise of security and
uncorrupt administration based on Sharia law has found fertile ground in such a setting.
Meanwhile, other parts of Nigeria, like Lagos, are becoming increasingly well-governed.
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Lagos is described as“A model city for the world”, and
much of its recent economic boom is attributed to competitive local elections in which
candidates have increasingly been forced“to show pragmatism and competence”’ (Kaplan,
2014). The point of this comparison is to illustrate how regional variation in institutional
quality might matter for where in a country we will see violent conflict; the state of Borno,
for example, has poor institutions and is highly affected by the insurgency, while Lagos
is comparatively better run and has remained much less touched by the violence.14 A
systemati
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