Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-h2j7s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T05:41:08.124Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Traditional institutions in Africa: past and present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2023

Clara Neupert-Wentz Open the ORCID record for Clara Neupert-Wentz [Opens in a new window]  and
Carl Müller-Crepon Open the ORCID record for Carl Müller-Crepon [Opens in a new window]
Clara Neupert-Wentz*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Carl Müller-Crepon
Affiliation:
Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
*
Corresponding author: Clara Neupert-Wentz; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To what degree and why are traditional institutions persistent? Following up the literature on the long-term effects of precolonial institutions in Africa, we investigate whether and where today's traditional institutions mirror their precolonial predecessors. We do so by linking data on contemporary traditional institutions of African ethnic groups with Murdock's historical Ethnographic Atlas. We find a robust association between past and present levels of institutional complexity, differentiating between institutions’ political centralization and functional differentiation. 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 account for varying persistence of traditional institutions.

Keywords

colonial legaciesEthnographic Atlasinstitutional developmentinstitutional persistencelong-term effectsprecolonial institutionstraditional institutions
Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 267 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of EPS Academic Ltd

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Acemoglu, D, Reed, T and Robinson, JA (2014) Chiefs: economic development and elite control of civil society in Sierra Leone. Journal of Political Economy 122, 319–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D, Egorov, G and Sonin, K (2021) Institutional change and institutional persistence. In Alberto, B and Giovanni, F (eds), The Handbook of Historical Economics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Academic Press, pp. 365–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acharya, A, Blackwell, M and Sen, M (2016) Explaining causal findings without bias: detecting and assessing direct effects. American Political Science Review 110, 512–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Afigbo, AE (1972) The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria 1891–1929. London, England: Longman.Google Scholar
Ali, M, Fjeldstad, O-H, Jiang, B and Shifa, A (2019) Colonial legacy, state-building and the salience of ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa. The Economic Journal 129(619), 1048–1081.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apthorpe, R (1960) Political change, centralization and role differenciation. Civilisations 10(2), 217–223.Google Scholar
Archibong, B (2019) Explaining divergence in the long-term effects of precolonial centralization on access to public infrastructure services in Nigeria. World Development 121, 123–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asiwaju, AI (1970) The Aleketu of Ketu and the Onimek of Meko: The Changing Status of two Yoruba Rulers under French and British rule. In Crowder M and Ikime O (eds), West African Chiefs. Their Changing Status under Colonial Rule and Independence. Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, pp. 134–161.Google Scholar
Austin, G (2008) The “reversal of fortune” thesis and the compression of history: perspectives from African and comparative economic history. Journal of International Development 20, 996–1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bahrami-Rad, D, Becker, A and Henrich, J (2021) Tabulated nonsense? Testing the validity of the Ethnographic Atlas. Economics Letters 204, 109880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, K (2016) The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baldwin, K and Holzinger, K (2019) Traditional political institutions and democracy: reassessing their compatibility and accountability. Comparative Political Studies 52, 1747–1774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, K and Ricart-Huguet, J (2023) Does land quality increase the power of traditional leaders in contemporary Africa. The Journal of Politics 85, 334–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birnir, JK, Wilkenfeld, J, Fearon, JD, Laitin, DD, Gurr, TR, Brancati, D, Saideman, SM, Pate, A and Hultquist, AS (2014) Socially relevant ethnic groups, ethnic structure, and AMAR. Journal of Peace Research 52, 110–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boas, F (1896) The limitations of the comparative method of anthropology. Science (New York, N.Y.) 4, 901–908.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brierley, S and Ofosu, GK (2022) Chiefs: endorsements and voter behavior. Unpublished Working Paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chlouba, V, Smith, DS and Wagner, S (2022) Early statehood and support for autocratic rule in Africa. Comparative Political Studies 55, 688–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cirone, AE and Pepinsky, TB (2021) Historical persistence. Available at SSRN.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, WB (1971) Rulers of Empire: The French Colonial Service in Africa. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, AL (1997) A Mission to Civilize. The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cornell, S and Kalt, JP (2000) Where's the glue? Institutional and cultural foundations of American Indian economic development. The Journal of Socio-Economics 29, 443–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowder, M (1968) West Africa under Colonial Rule. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Currie, TE, Greenhill, SJ, Gray, RD, Hasegawa, T and Mace, R (2010) Rise and fall of political complexity in island south-east Asia and the Pacific. Nature 467, 801–804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dalton, JT and Leung, TC (2014) Why is polygyny more prevalent in western Africa? An African slave trade perspective. Economic Development and Cultural Change 62, 599–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Juan, A (2017) “Traditional” resolution of land conflicts: the survival of precolonial dispute settlement in Burundi. Comparative Political Studies 50, 1835–1868.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Kadt, D and Larreguy, HA (2018) Agents of the regime? Traditional leaders and electoral politics in South Africa. The Journal of Politics 80, 382–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, J (1997) Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Englebert, P (2002) Patterns and theories of traditional resurgence in tropical Africa. Mondes en développement 118, 51–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, JD (2006) Ethnic Mobilisation and Ethnic Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 852–868.Google Scholar
Fenske, J (2013) Does land abundance explain African institutions?. The Economic Journal 123, 1363–1390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortes, M and Evans-Pritchard, EE (Eds.) (1940) African Political Systems. (1958 ed.) edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gennaioli, N and Rainer, I (2007) The modern impact of precolonial centralization in Africa. Journal of Economic Growth 12, 185–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, J, Ziblatt, D, Gorp, JVan and Arévalo, J (2011) An institutional theory of direct and indirect rule. World Politics 63, 377–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerschewski, J (2021) Explanations of institutional change: reflecting on a “missing diagonal”. American Political Science Review 115, 218–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giuliano, P and Nunn, N (2013) The transmission of democracy: from the village to the nation-state. The American Economic Review 103, 86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henn, SJ (2022) Complements or substitutes? How institutional arrangements bind traditional authorities and the state in Africa. American Political Science Review 1–20.Google Scholar
Herbst, J (2000) States and Power in Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, UK (1961) Development from below. Local Government and Finance in Developing Countries of the Commonwealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holzinger, K, Haer, R, Bayer, A, Behr, DM and Neupert-Wentz, C (2019) The constitutionalization of indigenous group rights, traditional political institutions, and customary law. Comparative Political Studies 52, 1775–1809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huillery, E (2010) The impact of European settlement within French West Africa: did precolonial prosperous areas fall behind?. Journal of African Economies 20, 263–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kent, RK, Southall, AW, Covell, MA, Deschamps, HJ and Dresch, J (2023), Madagascar.Google Scholar
Kromrey, D (2021) Traditional Political Systems & Index of Democraticness.Google Scholar
La Porta, R, Silanes, FLopez-de and Shleifer, A (2008) The economic consequences of legal origins. Journal of Economic Literature 46, 285–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Letsa, NW and Wilfahrt, M (2020) The mechanisms of direct and indirect rule: colonialism and economic development in Africa. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 15, 539–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logan, C (2013) The roots of resilience: exploring popular support for African traditional authorities. African Affairs 112, 353–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, J and Thelen, K (2009) A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–37.Google Scholar
Mainga, M (2010 [1973]) Bulozi under the Luyana kings: Political Evolution and State Formation in Pre-colonial Zambia. Lusaka: Bookworld Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M (1996) Citizen and Subject. Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McIntosh, SK (Ed.) (1999) Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalopoulos, S and Papaioannou, E (2013) Pre-colonial ethnic institutions and contemporary African development. Econometrica 81, 113–152.Google ScholarPubMed
Miles, WFS (1994) Hausaland Divided. Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Müller-Crepon, C (2020) Continuity or change? (In)direct rule in British and French colonial Africa. International Organization 74, 707–741.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller-Crepon, C, Pengl, Y and Bormann, N-C (2022) Linking ethnic data from Africa (LEDA). Journal of Peace Research 59, 425–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murdock, GP (1959) Africa. Its Peoples and Their Culture History. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Murdock, GP (1967) Ethnographic Atlas. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Mustasilta, K (2021) The implications of traditional authority contest for local-level stability—evidence from South Africa. Conflict Management and Peace Science 38, 457–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, DC (1991) Institutions. Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, N and Wantchekon, L (2011) The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa. The American Economic Review 101, 3221–3252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, SE (2006) Path dependence. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1, 87–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, J (2019) Ethnic violence in Africa: destructive legacies of pre-colonial states. International Organization 73, 645–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, J, Qiu, X and Ricart-Huguet, J (2021) Endogenous colonial borders: precolonial states and geography in the partition of Africa. Available at SSRN.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, T (1968) Nationality and nationalism: the case of Barotseland. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 4(2), 227–246.Google Scholar
Ranger, T (1983) The invention of tradition in colonial Africa. In Hobsbawm E. and Ranger T. (eds), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press, pp. 211–262.Google Scholar
Reid, RJ (2002) Political Power in Pre-colonial Buganda: Economy, Society & Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ricart-Huguet, J (2021) Why do colonial investments persist less in anglophone than in francophone Africa?. Journal of Historical Political Economy 1, 477–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawilowsky, SS (2009) New effect size rules of thumb. Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods 8, 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinding Bentzen, J, Hariri, JG and Robinson, JA (2019) Power and persistence: the indigenous roots of representative democracy. The Economic Journal 129, 678–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobin, J (1990) The HRAF as radical text?. Cultural Anthropology 5, 473–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wig, T (2016) Peace from the past: pre-colonial political institutions and civil wars in Africa. Journal of Peace Research 53, 509–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wig, T and Kromrey, D (2018) Which groups fight? Customary institutions and communal conflicts in Africa. Journal of Peace Research 55, 415–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilfahrt, M (2018) Precolonial legacies and institutional congruence in public goods delivery: evidence from decentralized West Africa. World Politics 70, 239–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilfahrt, M (2021) Precolonial Legacies in Postcolonial Politics: Representation and Redistribution in Decentralized West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, C (1994) The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Zeller, W and Melber, H (2019) United in separation? Lozi secessionism in Zambia and Namibia. In de Vries L, Englebert P, and Schomerus M (eds), Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, Disenchantment. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 293–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Neupert-Wentz and Müller-Crepon supplementary material

Neupert-Wentz and Müller-Crepon supplementary material
Download Neupert-Wentz and Müller-Crepon supplementary material(File)
File 5.4 MB
Supplementary material: File

Neupert-Wentz_and_Müller-Crepon_Dataset

Dataset

Download Neupert-Wentz_and_Müller-Crepon_Dataset(File)
File