Ethnic Diversity and Economic Instability in Africa Interdisciplinary Perspectives

There is growing consensus in the development economics literature that ethnic diversity is a very significant factor in explaining Africa's poor economic performance. Ethnic Diversity and Economic Instability in Africa challenges this conventional wisdom. Drawing on the insights of historians, anthropologists and political scientists as well as development economists, this book questions whether ethnicity is the most useful organising principle by which to examine the economic development of Africa, arguing that it is a more fluid and contingent concept than economic models allow. Instead, the authors explore the actual experience of ethnicity in Africa and propose new methods of measuring ethnic diversity and inequalities. Finally some tentative conclusions are reached regarding appropriate policy reforms.

List of figures; List of tables; Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgements; Notes on the contributors; Introduction; Findings of development economics and their limitations Gustav Ranis; Part I. De-mystifying Ethnicity: 1. Ethnic patriotism and markets in African history John Lonsdale; 2. The concept of ethnicity: strengths and limitations for quantitative analysis Graham Brown and Arnim Langer; 3. Essence of ethnicity: an African perspective Bethwell Allan Ogot; Part II. Does Ethnic Diversity Hinder Economic Development?: 4. State, ethnicity and economy in Africa Yash Pal Ghai; 5. Ethnic politics, economic reform and democratisation in Africa Bruce J. Berman; 6. Evidence from spatial correlation of poverty and income in Kenya Nobuaki Hamaguchi; Part III. Relationships between Ethnicity and Stability: 7. Belonging, exclusion and ethnic competition Parker Shipton; 8. Horizontal inequalities and market instability in Africa Graham Brown and Frances Stewart; 9. Impact of ethnicities on market outcome: results of market experiments in Kenya Ken-Ichi Shimomura and Takehiko Yamato; Conclusion: key findings of our interdisciplinary dialogue Hiroyuki Hino; Author index; Subject index.

Scholars from across the social sciences challenge the conventional wisdom that ethnic diversity is an important cause of the poor economic performance in Africa. Instead, the authors explore actual experiences of ethnicity in Africa, propose new methods of measuring and analysing diversity and suggest how these findings may influence policy.

Hiroyuki Hino is Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya.
John Lonsdale is Fellow of Trinity College and Professor Emeritus of Modern African History at the University of Cambridge.
Gustav Ranis is Frank Altschul Professor Emeritus of International Economics at Yale University.
Frances Stewart is Professor Emeritus of Development Economics at the University of Oxford.