Colonial Education, Political Elites, and Regional Political Inequality in Africa

• Author: Joan Ricart-Huguet
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0010414021997176
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414021997176

Comparative Political Studies

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0010414021997176

journals.sagepub.com/home/cps

Article

Colonial Education,

Political Elites, and

Regional Political

Inequality in Africa

Joan Ricart-Huguet1

Abstract

Political elites tend to favor their home region when distributing resources.

But what explains how political power is distributed across a country’s

regions to begin with? Explanations of cabinet formation focus on short-

term strategic bargaining and some emphasize that ministries are allocated

equitably to minimize conflict. Using new data on the cabinet members

(1960–2010) of 16 former British and French African colonies, I find that

some regions have been systematically much more represented than others.

Combining novel historical and geospatial records, I show that this regional

political inequality derives not from colonial-era development in general

but from colonial-era education in particular. I argue that post-colonial

ministers are partly a byproduct of civil service recruitment practices among

European administrators that focused on levels of literacy. Regional political

inequality is an understudied pathway through which colonial legacies impact

distributive politics and unequal development in Africa today.

JEL: F54, I26, N37, N47

Keywords

political elites, cabinets, colonialism, education, regional inequality, Africa

1Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joan Ricart-Huguet, Department of Political Science, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 North

Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210-2601, USA.

Email: jricart-huguet@loyola.edu

997176

CPSXXX10.1177/0010414021997176Comparative Political StudiesRicart-Huguet

research-article

2021

2021, Vol. 54(14) 2546 –2580

Ricart-Huguet 2547

2 Comparative Political Studies 00(0)

In a political system where nearly every adult may vote but where knowledge,

wealth, social position, access to officials, and other resources are unequally

distributed, who actually governs?

Dahl (1961, p. 1)

Introduction

Political elites fundamentally shape political representation, conflict, and the

distribution of resources. Existing research shows that presidents and minis-

ters disproportionately favor their home region, especially in less democratic

countries (Andre et al., 2018; Hodler & Raschky, 2014; Kramon & Posner,

2016). As Bates (1974, p. 470) argued, “in the political arena, it is not just

power that is at stake, but also the benefit which power can bring.” In this

article, I begin by showing that political power is unequally distributed within

African countries: some regions are heavily over-represented in cabinets

while others are underrepresented. This presents an important puzzle: What

explains the regional distribution of political power to begin with? More spe-

cifically, what explains the share of ministers hailing from each of a country’s

regions or districts?1

Existing literature offers two explanations of cabinet formation: regional

favoritism and regional balancing. Regional favoritism emphasizes that the

making of the cabinet is the result of short-term regional and ethnic strategic

considerations such as patronage (Arriola, 2009). In 1970s Uganda, Colonel

Idi Amin filled his cabinet with people from West Nile, his home region. In

Côte d’Ivoire, Houphouët-Boigny’s cabinets favored the Baoulé, his ethnic

group. Meanwhile, regional balancing posits that “representation in a presi-

dent’s cabinet [. . .] has to appear to be equitable” (Keller, 1983, p. 259) to

deter conflict. “President Kenyatta’s announcement of three ministerial

appointments from Nyanza province in July 1969 was clearly calculated to

appease the aggrieved feelings of the Luo people following the assassination

of Tom Mboya, one of Kenya’s founding fathers” (Rothchild, 1970, p. 605).

Consistent with this example, Francois et al. (2015, p. 472) show that ethnic

group shares in the cabinet are correlated with population shares.

I contend that both explanations are incomplete and possibly shortsighted

because they only examine the short-term strategy of politicians (Laver &

Shepsle, 1996), ignore the historical origins of elites, and cannot account for

the persistent regional political inequality that I uncover. Figure 1 shows the

percentages of minister-years (most ministers stay in power for more than

1 year) by district in Uganda and Senegal between 1960 and 2010.2 If regional

balancing produced equitable distributions of minister-year shares, then the

2548 Comparative Political Studies 54(14)

Ricart-Huguet 3

distribution would be uniform (the left graphs would be flat) or proportional

to population (the right graphs would be flat). Neither is the case. Some dis-

tricts have systematically punched above their weight since independence

and others below. Averaged over 1960 to 2010, 14% of the minister-years in

Uganda were born in Ankole district despite its population being only 9% of

Uganda’s total. 14% of the minister-years in Senegal were born in Saint Louis

even though the district comprises less than 2% of Senegal’s population.

Regional favoritism alone cannot explain the patterns in Figure 1 either.

Ankole district in Uganda is over-represented partly because President

Museveni (1986–) was born there. However, patronage-type explanations

beg the question of why leaders hail from one district or another in the first

place. Further, other districts beyond the president’s are over-represented.

Regional favoritism cannot explain the case of Saint Louis either: no

Senegalese president was born there. More generally, and in spite of politi-

cal instability in many East and West African countries, district representa-

tion in the 1960s correlates with district representation in the 2000s

(

ρ

= 0.46 ), thus suggesting underlying and persistent inequalities in politi-

cal representation.

0 5 10 15 20

Percentage

Karamoja

Mubende

Teso

Bunyoro

Masaka

Lango

Budama

Westnile

Central

Toro

Acholi

Busoga

Kigezi

Ankole

Mengo

minister share

-4 -2 0 2 4 6

Percentage

Mubende

Busoga

Masaka

Lango

Karamoja

Central

Toro

Westnile

Teso

Bunyoro

Mengo

Acholi

Budama

Kigezi

Ankole

minister share - population share

Uganda

0 5 10 15

Percentage

Bakel

Dagana

Hautegambie

Podor

Tambacounda

Matam

Tivaouane

Baol

Louga

Casamance

Sinesaloum

Saintlouis

Dakar

Thies

minister share

-5 0 5 10 15

Percentage

Dakar

Sinesaloum

Baol

Tivaouane

Dagana

Bakel

Podor

Matam

Tambacounda

Hautegambie

Casamance

Louga

Thies

Saintlouis

minister share - population share

Senegal

Figure 1. Minister-shares by district of birth (1960–2010 average).

The left figures show the percentage of minister-years born in each colonial district (1960–

2010 average). The right figures subtract district population shares (1960–2010 average) from

that percentage.