Publications

Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). State Reach and Development in Africa since the 1960s: New Data and Analysis. Political Science Research and Methods, FirstView.

Abstract PDF Dataset DOI

Prominent arguments hold that African states' geography limits state capacity, impedes public service provision, and slows economic development. To test this argument, I collect comprehensive panel data on a proxy of local state capacity, travel times to national and regional capitals. These are computed on a yearly 5x5km grid using time-varying data on roads and administrative units (1966-2016). I use these data to estimate the effect of changes in travel times to capitals on local education provision, infant mortality rates, and nightlight emissions. Within the same location, development outcomes generally improve as travel times to its capitals decrease. These data and results improve the measurement of state capacity and contribute to the understanding of its effects on human welfare. <br /><br /> The data are available on this [Github page](https://github.com/carl-mc/state_reach_africa).

Carl Müller-Crepon, Yannick Pengl, and Nils-Christian Bormann (2021). Linking Ethnic Data from Africa (LEDA). Journal of Peace Research, 59(3) 425–435.

Abstract PDF R-package DOI

Social scientists increasingly combine multiple datasets to study ethnicity in Africa. We facilitate these efforts by systematically linking over 8'100 ethnic categories from eleven databases including surveys, geographic data, and expert-coded lists. Exploiting the linguistic tree from the Ethnologue database, we propose a systematic solution to the *grouping problem* of ethnicity. Novel empirical results on trust in African heads of states highlight the importance of explicitly considering sample inclusion criteria and different ways of linking ethnic categories from multiple datasets. An R-package allows researchers to link ethnic groups from any database with explicit rules and to easily add their own data on ethnic groups.

Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). Local Ethno-Political Polarization and Election Violence in Majoritarian vs. Proportional Systems. Journal of Peace Research, 59(2), 242-258.

Abstract PDF DOI

How does local ethnic demography affect the conduct of majoritarian elections? Because legislative elections in majoritarian systems are contested locally, local ethno-political polarization increases the risk of pre-election violence. In districts that are polarized between politically competing ethnic groups, violence can be targeted with comparative ease at opposing voters, and can, if perpetrated collectively, mobilize the perpetrators' co-ethnics. I expect no such dynamics in PR systems where political competition plays out at higher geographical levels. To test this argument, I combine new data on the ethnic composition of local populations in 22 African countries with monthly data on riots and survey data on campaign violence. Ethno-politically polarized districts in majoritarian and mixed electoral systems see substantively larger increases in the number of riots prior to legislative elections and more fear of pre-election violence among citizens than non-polarized districts in the same country and at the same time. I do not find these patterns in PR systems. The results enhance our understanding of how electoral systems interact with local ethnic demography in shaping pre-election violence.

Janina Beiser-McGrath, Carl Müller-Crepon, and Yannick Pengl (2021). Who Benefits? How Local Ethnic Demography Shapes Political Favoritism in Africa. British Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 1582–1600.

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This article investigates how local ethnic demography affects strategies of favoritism in Africa. Recent studies of ethnic favoritism report advantages of either presidents' ethnic peers or home regions. As regions in multi-ethnic states are rarely perfectly homogeneous, these studies cannot disentangle whether favoritism targets entire regions or co-ethnic individuals. We argue that governments' provision of goods depends on local ethnic demographies. Where government co-ethnics are in the majority, ethno-regional favoritism benefits all locals regardless of their ethnic identity. Outside of these strongholds, incumbents pursue discriminatory strategies and only their co-ethnics gain from favoritism. We use fine-grained geographic data on ethnic demography and infant mortality to test these hypotheses. Results from rigorous fixed effects specifications that exploit temporal changes in the ethnic composition of governments support our theoretical claims. Our findings have important implications for theories of distributional politics and conflict in multi-ethnic societies.

Carl Müller-Crepon, Philipp Hunziker and Lars-Erik Cederman (2021). Roads to Rule, Roads to Rebel: Relational State Capacity and Conflict in Africa. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 65(2-3), 563-590.

Abstract PDF Appendix DOI

Weak state capacity is one of the most important explanations of civil conflict. Yet, current conceptualizations of state capacity typically focus only on the state while ignoring the relational nature of armed conflict. We argue that opportunities for conflict arise where relational state capacity is low, that is, where the state has less control over its subjects than its potential challengers. This occurs in ethnic groups that are poorly accessible from the state capital, but are internally highly interconnected. To test this argument, we digitize detailed African road maps and convert them into a road atlas akin to Google Maps. We measure the accessibility and internal connectedness of groups via travel times obtained from this atlas and simulate road networks for an instrumental variable design. Our findings suggest that low relational state capacity increases the risk of armed conflict in Africa.

Carl Müller-Crepon (2020). Continuity or Change? (In)direct Rule in British and French Colonial Africa. International Organization, 74(4), 707-741.

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Low levels of development and state capacity in Africa are thought to originate in colonialism in general and indirect colonial rule in particular. But despite a century of debate about the nature, causes, and consequences of direct and indirect colonial rule on the continent, data and evidence about its application are scarce. Based on newly collected historical data, this paper provides evidence for two claims that have marked the debate since its inception. First, British administrations have ruled more indirectly than French ones. French colonization led to demise of 7 out of 10 pre-colonial polities. Under British rule, 3 out of 10 polities disappeared as measured by the continuation of their lines of succession. Second, pre-colonial centralization was a crucial prerequisite for indirect rule. Local administrative data from 8 British colonies shows that British colonizers employed less administrative effort and devolved more power to native authorities where centralized institutions existed. Such a pattern did not exist in French colonies. Together, these findings improve our understanding of the long-term effects of pre-colonial institutions, the roots of regional and ethnic inequalities, and the origins of currently observed customary institutions in Africa.

Carl Müller-Crepon and Philipp Hunziker (2018). New spatial data on ethnicity: Introducing SIDE. Journal of Peace Research, 55(5), 687–698.

Abstract PDF R-package Dataset DOI

Research on ethnic politics and political violence has benefited substantially from the growing availability of cross-national, geo-coded data on ethnic settlement patterns. However, because existing datasets represent ethnic homelands using aggregate polygon features, they lack information on ethnic compositions at the local level. Addressing this gap, this article introduces the Spatially Interpolated Data on Ethnicity (SIDE) dataset, a collection of 253 near-continuous maps of local ethno-linguistic, religious, and ethno-religious settlement patterns in 47 low- and middle-income countries. We create these data using spatial interpolation and machine learning methods to generalize the ethnicity-related information in the geo-coded Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). For each DHS survey we provide the ethnic, religious, and ethno-religious compositions of cells on a raster that covers the respective countries at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds. The resulting data are optimized for use with geographic information systems (GIS) software. Comparisons of SIDE with existing categorical datasets and district-level census data from Uganda and Senegal are used to assess the data's accuracy. Finally, we use the new data to study the effects of local polarization between politically relevant ethnic groups, finding a positive effect on the risk of local violence such as riots and protests. However, local ethno-political polarization is not statistically associated with violent events pertaining to larger-scale processes such as civil wars.

Working Papers

Carl Müller-Crepon, Guy Schvitz, and Lars-Erik Cederman (2023). Shaping States into Nations: The Effects of Ethnic Geography on State Borders. American Journal of Political Science, conditionally accepted for publication.

Abstract PDF R-package

Borders define states, yet little systematic evidence explains where they are drawn. Putting recent challenges to state borders into perspective and breaking new methodological ground, this paper analyzes how ethnic geography and nationalism have shaped European borders since the 19th century. We argue that nationalism creates pressures to redraw political borders along ethnic lines, ultimately making states more congruent with ethnic groups. We introduce a Probabilistic Spatial Partition Model to test this argument, modeling state territories as partitions of a planar spatial graph. Using new data on Europe's ethnic geography since 1855, we find that ethnic boundaries increase the conditional probability that two locations they separate are, or will become, divided by a state border. Secession is an important mechanism driving this result. Similar dynamics characterize border change in Asia but not in Africa and the Americas. Our results highlight the endogenous formation of nation-states in Europe and beyond.

Janina Dill, Marnie Howlett, and Carl Müller-Crepon (2022). At Any Cost: How Ukrainians Think about Self-Defense Against Russia. American Journal of Political Science, conditionally accepted for publication.

Abstract PDF R-package

How do Ukrainians view the costs and benefits of armed self-defense? We examine support for different strategies Ukraine could pursue against Russia, using a conjoint survey experiment with 1,160 Ukrainian respondents, fielded in July 2022. The strategies have projected outcomes with varying degrees of political autonomy and territorial integrity and three expected costs: civilian fatalities, deaths among Ukrainian fighters, and risk of nuclear escalation. We find that Ukrainians strongly prefer strategies that fully restore Ukraine's political autonomy and territorial integrity, even if concessions would reduce the costs of fighting Russia. The moral principle of proportionality suggests that the expected costs of self-defense should not exceed its projected benefits, corresponding to calls on Ukraine to grant concessions to end the war. Our respondents' choices do not reflect this logic. Instead they evoke a categorical resistance against aggression: 79 percent of respondents oppose strategies leading to a Russian-controlled government, regardless of the costs.

Yannick Pengl, Carl Müller-Crepon, Roberto Valli, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Luc Girardin (2022). The Train Wrecks of Modernization: Railway Construction and Nationalist Mobilization in Europe.

Abstract

Many view nationalist ideologies and national identities across Europe as the outgrowth of economic, social, and political modernization in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet, there are few spatio-temporally disaggregated continent-wide tests of the relationship between modernization processes and nationalism. More importantly, it is theoretically unclear whether modernization led to national cohesion and stabilized Europe’s multi-ethnic states or whether it destabilized them by fueling non-state nationalisms and separatist mobilization. In this paper, we use the gradual expansion of the European railway network 1816-1945 to investigate how this key technological driver of modernization affected ethnic separatism. Combining new historical data on ethnic settlement areas, conflict, and railway construction, we test how railroads affected separatist conflict and successful secession as well as independence claims among peripheral ethnic groups. Difference-in-differences, event study, and instrumental variable models show that, on average, railway-based modernization increased separatist mobilization and secession. Exploring causal mechanisms, we show how railway networks can either facilitate mobilization by increasing the internal connectivity of ethnic regions or hamper it by boosting national market integration and state reach. In line with our theoretical framework of center-periphery bargaining, separatist responses to railway access concentrate in countries with small core groups, weak state capacity, and low levels of economic development as well as in large ethnic minority regions. Overall, our findings call for a more nuanced understanding of the effects of European modernization on nation building. *Paper available upon request.*

Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). Building Tribes: How Administrative Units Shaped Ethnic Groups in Africa. American Journal of Political Science, conditionally accepted for publication.

Abstract PDF

Ethnic identities around the world are deeply intertwined with modern statehood, yet the extent to which territorial governance has shaped ethnic groups is empirically unknown. I argue that governments at the national and subnational levels have incentives to bias governance in favor of large groups. The resulting disadvantages for ethnic minorities motivate their assimilation and emigration. Both gradually align ethnic groups with administrative borders. I examine the result of this process at subnational administrative borders across Sub-Saharan Africa and use credibly exogenous, straight borders for causal identification. I find substantive increases in the local population share of administrative units' predominant ethnic group at units’ borders. Powerful traditional authorities and size advantages of predominant groups increase this effect. Data on minority assimilation and migration show that both drive the shaping of ethnic groups along administrative borders. These results highlight important effects of the territorial organization of modern governance on ethnic groups.

Carl Müller-Crepon, Guy Schvitz, and Lars-Erik Cederman (2021). 'Right-Peopling' the State: Nationalism, Historical Legacies and Ethnic Cleansing in Europe, 1885-2020. Under review.

Abstract

Much of today's ethnic homogeneity in European states was historically produced by governments that ethnically ''cleansed'' their territories. Despite the importance of this historical transformation, we lack systematic evidence of the conditions under which groups became targets of forced homogenization. We argue that rising nationalism in the 19th century threatened multi-ethnic states with secessionism and irredentism. To preempt the loss of territory, states turned to ''right-peopling'', or violent ethnic homogenization through displacement and genocide. Non-dominant groups were most likely to be homogenized where the risk of territorial conflict was highest. This was the case especially where groups straddled borders, and where past border changes increased the potential for revisionist nationalism. Using new spatial data on Europe's ethnic geography from 1886 to the present, we find support for our arguments. \ \ *Paper available upon request.*

Clara Neupert-Wentz and Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). Traditional Institutions in Africa, Past and Present. Under review.

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To what degree and why are traditional institutions persistent? Following up on the literature on the long-term effects of precolonial institutions in Africa, we investigate whether today's traditional institutions mirror their precolonial predecessors. We link new data on traditional institutions of African ethnic groups with Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas. We find a robust association between past and present levels of centralization. However, this persistence originates almost exclusively from former British colonies governed with more reliance on precolonial institutions than other colonies, in particular French ones. These findings contribute to research on the development and effects of traditional institutions, highlighting the need to theoretically and empirically differentiate between what we call institutional persistence and persistent effects of past institutions.

Lars-Erik Cederman, Luc Girardin, and Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). Nationalism and the Puzzle of Reversing State Size. World Politics, forthcoming.

Abstract

Rationalist developmental theories, whether statist, liberal or Marxist, expect the scale of governance to grow steadily. Yet, after increasing well into the 19th century, territorial state sizes started declining toward the end of that century and have continued to do so until today. What explains this puzzle? We argue that ethnic nationalism is a main driver of this development. To substantiate this point, we rely on various spatial data resources on state borders and ethnic maps that trace the two past centuries of European history, and global history since 1886. Our analysis is conducted at the systemic and state levels, and exploits information at the interstate dyadic level to reconstruct trends in average state size for ethnic and non-ethnic border change. We find that while nationalism exerts both integrating and disintegrating effects on states' territories, it is the latter impact that has dominated. *Paper available upon request.*

Lars-Erik Cederman, Yannick Pengl, Luc Girardin, and Carl Müller-Crepon (2021). The Future is History: Restorative Nationalism and Conflict in Post-Napoleonic Europe. Under review.

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The recent revival of nationalism has brought a threatening return of revisionist conflict. Yet, because of its radically modernist orientation dismissing past references as irrelevant, current scholarship on nationalism and political violence offers little guidance. Taking the nationalists seriously if not literally, we study how they use narratives harking back to past 'golden ages' to legitimize territorial claims and mobilize resources for action in post-Napoleonic Europe. Our analysis draws on geocoded data on state borders going back to the Middle Ages, combined with new spatial data on ethnic settlement areas from the 19th century retrieved from historical atlases. Our findings indicate that restorative nationalism, conceptualized as a loss of power and/or unity relative to past reference points, increases the risk of civil and interstate conflict.

Carl Müller-Crepon (2020). Indirect Rule, Cash Crop Production, and Development in Africa.

Abstract PDF

Colonial governance in Africa varied considerably in its extent of indirect rule through precolonial institutions. Assessing the developmental consequences of indirect rule, this paper argues that it strengthened populations' bargaining power and increased public service provision in return for taxation of agricultural produce, in particular cash crops. To test this argument, I exploit variation in the indirectness of colonial rule -- whereas British indirect rule increased in the centralization of precolonial institutions, the French implemented more uniform direct rule. I furthermore measure public service provision with geo-referenced education outcomes of individuals born and raised under colonial rule and use soils' suitability for cash crop production as an exogenous proxy for real production. Supporting the theoretical claim, the effect of cash crop suitability on primary education increases with precolonial centralization in former British colonies, but not in French ones. Comparisons of education rates in neighboring ethnic groups with different levels of centralization and ethnic groups cut by British-French boundaries reaffirm this result. Contemporary development outcomes show patterns consistent with persistent effects of indirect rule in cash crop producing areas. The findings underscore the joint importance of political institutions and resource endowments in determining local development.

Ongoing Projects

Control through Conservation: The Ethnic Politics of Natural Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa

Stephen Dawson, Felix Haass, Carl Müller-Crepon, and Aksel Sundström

Abstract

National parks and other area-based natural protection measures are often hailed as environmentally beneficial policies. Yet, local populations affected by such projects have to bear costs disproportional to their local benefits. These costs, we argue, originate from states' strategic use of natural protection measures to subjugate peripheral, often ethnically distinct areas, manage their populations, and extract resources from them. We propose that ethnic groups excluded from executive power are most targeted by such measures. We test this argument using Africa-wide and global spatio-temporal data on ethnic groups' executive power status and natural protected areas since countries independence. Difference-in-differences models estimate the causal effect of ethno-political exclusion on the establishment of protected areas. We then examine the effects of protected areas on state repression, spatial population distributions, and local economic development as observable corollaries of governments' motivations of ethnically biased environmental policies. This project promises insights on how governments strategically (mis-) use environmental protection for ethno-political control.

Rulers on the Road: Itinerant Rule in the Holy Roman Empire, AD 719–1519

Carl Müller-Crepon, Clara Neupert-Wentz, Andrej Kokkonen and Jørgen Møller

Abstract

Itinerant rule, rule exercised through traveling, was a common pre-modern form of governance over weakly centralized states. Yet, not much is known about the characteristics and drivers of rulers' itineraries which determined the reach of their states. We argue that rulers maximize the payoff of their travels by targeting areas lacking trustworthy agents. We test this argument by focusing on the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) in the period AD 919–1519. We reconstruct emperors’ itineraries from data on more than 78'000 dated, and geolocated activities they engaged in and measure the presence of close agents by recurring to emperors immediate family members and their geolocated titles. Exploiting the significant negative shock of the Great Interregnum 1250-1273 on the power of emperors, we expect strong and secure, pre-1250 emperors to frequent areas not controlled by their relatives. Relatively weak, post-1273 emperors, however, should spend relatively more time in family-ruled territories to counter threats originating from them. Exploiting credibly exogenous variation across emperors and dynasties, our analysis corroborates these expectations. Shedding light on an understudied pre-modern political phenomenon, our findings help us better understand how the HRE developed into a decentralized and fragmented political unit.

Cracking or Packing Ethnic Groups? The Colonial Design of Administrative Units in Sub-Saharan Africa

Carl Müller-Crepon

Abstract

The design of subnational administrative units is fundamental to the functioning of states and their political topography. Yet, we lack theoretical and empirical knowledge on the determinants of the partitioning of state territories into subnational governance units. I argue that aligning administrative borders with ethnic geography increases short term governance efficiency. Yet, because such *packing* of units stabilizes ethnic identities and institutions, some governments may instead design heterogeneous units and *crack* groups to centralize power. I analyze these arguments by studying unit-design in Sub-Sahara Africa, contrasting different forms of colonial rule with new data on administrative and precolonial ethnic geographies derived from historical maps and toponyms. Modeling administrative borders with a probabilistic spatial partition model, preliminary results show evidence of packing rather than cracking: Ethnic boundaries are strongly and positively associated with administrative borders. These effects are most pronounced under more indirect British rule. In turn, no systematic effects are observed under more centralizing French rule. With novel theory, data, and methods, this paper contributes to our understanding of the ethnic roots of administrative geographies.

Naming the Nation: State Building and National Identity Formation in 19th Century Germany

Carl Müller-Crepon and Yannick Pengl

Abstract

A large literature argues that 19th century European state building entailed the formation of nations - societies not only held together by international borders but by a common identity and culture. We study the effects of building the German Reich through phases of territorial integration, and expansion of transport networks on change towards a overarching German identity in the 19th century. We measure individual-level identity choices by analyzing first names recorded in genealogical data covering more than 10 million individuals, along with birth dates and places. We use the choice of old German instead of religious or foreign names as a proxy for national consciousness. We also develop more neutral measures of cultural homogenization by embedding unique first names into a continuous vector space, and calculating parents' cultural proximity to Prussia (or any other location in our data). To isolate the causal effects of state building and increasing mobility on these outcomes, we exploit spatio-temporal variation in the territorial expansion of Prussia and the growth of transport networks. The results will contribute to the literature on state and nation building and enhance our understanding of its interaction with cultural change and ethnic homogenization.

Chiefs, Pre-Colonial Centralization and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Horacio Larreguy, Benjamin Marx, and Carl Müller-Crepon

Abstract

A recent literature shows that pre-colonial political centralization fosters public goods provision in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. In this project, we test whether differences in public goods provision across areas with varying pre-colonial centralization results from more transfers of resources from governments, in exchange for electoral support, in areas where chiefs have a historical advantage in mobilizing their communities. We first develop a simple model where an incumbent politician garners support through targeted transfers. The electoral efficiency of these transfers depends on the ability of chiefs to mobilize voters, and increases when these are co-ethnics of the incumbent. We test the distinct predictions the model generates using a newly constructed constituency-level dataset combining electoral outcomes and satellite lights from 35 Sub-Saharan African countries.

Roads to Extraction: Natural Resources and the Physical Foundations of State Capacity in Africa

Carl Müller-Crepon

Abstract

Sparse and uneven transport networks fundamentally limit states' ability to project power and promote development in many African countries. However, not much is known about their historical roots. This project analyzes the colonial causes and consequences of transportation networks in colonial Africa between 1900 and 1966. I argue that colonial transport networks where mostly built to connect potential centers of production with ports rather than to facilitate exchange between colonies' inhabitants or defend territory against challengers. Lowering transport costs to ports, (rail)roads unleashed local cash crop and mining revolutions, increasing exports and filling the states’ coffers with taxes on the same. Empirically, I collect data from British administrative reports to reconstruct the evolution of transportation networks in 8 colonies until 1940 and draw on a continental cross-section of roads observed in 1966. Using tools from network analysis, I assess local mineral and agricultural resources as one driver of networks’ geographical development. The results shed light on the extractive origins of colonial state building.

Dissertation

State building, development and conflict in 20th century Africa

Spatial analyses of local state building and its effects on development and conflict.

Carl Müller-Crepon

Abstract

My dissertation examines the geography of state building in 20th century Africa and assesses the effects of local state capacity on development and conflict. I argue that rulers invest in building their states to increase the revenue they extract from society. Trading taxes for public services, rulers' profits are constrained by their bargaining power and transaction costs. They tilt both in their favor by investing in direct or indirect rule over internal competitors and by building transport infrastructure that connects them to their people. To maximize returns, rulers target their investments to local socio-geographic environments. The result is spatial variation in state capacity, which affects local development and conflict. \ \ The first empirical part of the dissertation analyzes African states' investments into local state capacity. To analyze where colonizers increased their bargaining power, I present new data on local direct and indirect rule in French and British colonies. These data show that British governments crushed precolonial polities half as often as their French counterparts, who commanded more administrative resources and mirrored direct governance in metropolitan France. The data also show that the British ruled indirectly over precolonial states, but directly over societies without centralized institutions to co-opt. I then examine where rulers reduced their transaction costs by investing in transport infrastructure. To this end, I gather road network data from British colonial reports (1900--1950) and use machine learning to digitize road maps of post-colonial Africa (1966--2016). Highlighting the extractive roots of local state reach, I find that resource-rich areas have featured more roads and better connections to ports and capitals throughout the century. \ \ The second empirical part examines the effects of indirect rule and local state reach on development and conflict. As indirect colonial rule increased the bargaining power of local populations, indirectly ruled citizens received more public services in return for producing resources taxed by their governments, in particular cash crops. Analyses that exploit variation in indirect rule across neighboring ethnic groups and within groups split by French-British borders bolster this result. Citizens also profit from expanding trade with the government that comes with lower transaction costs. Assessing the impact of local changes in travel times towards administrative capitals, I find generally positive effects on local education, infant mortality, and nightlight emissions. Lastly, transport infrastructure allows governments to keep the peace but can also facilitate rebel mobilization. Drawing on credibly exogenous variation in simulated road networks, I find that roads that connect ethnic groups with national capitals curb conflicts, while roads that connect groups internally increase the risk of violence. \ \ My dissertation adds to the literature by analyzing the extractive roots of local state capacity in Africa, highlighting the interaction between colonial and precolonial institutions, and focusing on the trade between states and their citizens to explain local development and conflict. New data on local state capacity in 20th century Africa enable these contributions.

Carl Müller-Crepon

Assistant Professor

London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Government

About Me

Interests

Education

Publications

Working Papers

Ongoing Projects

Dissertation

State building, development and conflict in 20th century Africa

Data Projects

State Reach in Africa

Linking Ethnic Data from Africa (LEDA)

Spatially Interpolated Data on Ethnicity

Regions in independent Africa

African road network data

Teaching

Teaching

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