Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Civil War and Liberalization in Africa's Neopatrimonial Regimes

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

In the early 1990s, African countries underwent tremendous political change. Roughly a quarter of African states experienced internal armed conflict, while one-third made democratic transitions, and the rest remained authoritarian with minimal liberalization. What explains African states divergent trajectories? What is the mechanism that separates political conflict from liberalization? More generally, what explains why some governments and their domestic adversaries are able to reach a political bargain, leading to liberalization, while others fail, leading to civil war? To answer these questions, the PI focuses on the role of neopatrimonial institutions, the superstructure of the African state. These institutions the networks that elites create to distribute patronage to clients play a crucial role in mediating the strategic interaction of the state and dissident during times of exogenous change. One can distinguish between two sub-types of clientelism: exclusive and inclusive, or thin and thick. African governments, since independence, can be placed on a continuum between these two ideal sub-types. In thick neopatrimonial states, patronage is channeled through formal institutions and patron-client networks extensively and inclusively link state and society. In contrast, thin neopatrimonialism is characterized by the distribution of patronage through informal, personalized institutions and narrow and exclusive patron-client networks. Facing exogenous shocks, rational actors embedded in African states with thick neopatrimonial institutions are more likely to engage in a political bargain to settle conflicting preferences. On the other hand, rational actors, facing similar exogenous changes, but embedded in states with thin neopatrimonial institutions are less likely to be able to cope with conflicting preferences and are more likely to fall victim to failed political bargains and violence. To test this theory, we need a systematic measure of the institutional bases of neopatrimonialism over time across African states. To date, however, this variable has been missing from African politics scholarship. Proxy variables have been used to measure patronage, or the distribution of government expenditures for political purposes, but these purely economic variables do not capture how the resources are distributed and through what institutions. The broader impact and overall objective of this project is to create this missing neopatrimonialism variable. The PI proposes a coding scheme and details how he will measure the variable and score cases. This NSF grant will be used to gather data and carry out this research at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in fall 2005. In addition, it will provide funds for hiring research assistants to carry out systematic coding of neopatrimonial institutions in all sub-Saharan African countries between independence and 2000.