International Development ISSN 1470-2320 Working Paper Series 2017 No.17-188 The Politics of Ethnic Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa Professor Elliott Green Published: November 2017 Department of International Development London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street Tel: +44 (020) 7955 7425/6252 London Fax: +44 (020) 7955-6844 WC2A 2AE UK Email:
[email protected] Website: http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/home.aspx The Politics of Ethnic Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa Elliott Green1 Associate Professor of Development Studies Department of International Development London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE UK
[email protected] Abstract: Recent literature on ethnic favouritism suggests that Presidents tend to target co-ethnics with patronage, especially in non-democracies. Coupled with evidence on the role of incentives in driving ethnic identity change, I propose that a change in the ethnic identity of presidents in non- democracies should lead to ethnic switching among citizens towards the new ruling ethnic group. Using Demographic and Health Survey data from thirteen African countries, I show that change in the ethnic identity of the President leads to a shift of women identifying with the new ruling ethnic group of around 1.5% of the population in non-democracies, or on average 10% of the President’s ethnic group. This relationship is robust to the use of a variety of control variables and different specifications as well as the use of qualitative case study evidence from Ghana and Guinea; I also suggest it may be an underestimate due to data limitations.