Work

Ethnic Geography and the Colonial Design of Administrative Units in Sub-Saharan Africa

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Subnational administrative units are fundamental to territorial states and their political topography, but we know little about how their borders are designed. I argue that indirect rulers engage in preservation by ethnically aligning administrative borders, which empowers peripheral actors. In contrast, centralizing governments disrupt ethnic groups and their ability for collective action by splitting groups (dismemberment) and/or creating diverse units (suffocation). I test this argument by studying colonial administrative unit designs in Sub-Saharan Africa. I contrast indirect British with more direct French colonial rule and use new historical data on administrative borders and ethnic geography. Modeling subnational borders with a probabilistic spatial partition model, I find strong positive associations with ethnic boundaries under British compared to French rule, which realized more extensive ethnic dismemberment but not suffocation. The results shed light on colonial administrative unit designs, thus highlighting the importance of unit endogeneity more broadly.

Source: Comparative Political Studies

DOI: 10.1177/00104140261448410

Author: Carl Müller-Crepon

Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science

Language: English

Topic: Political Conflict and Governance

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,900