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
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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
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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
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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. \
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*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.
Abstract
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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.
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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.