Essays on ethnic politics in Africa

This dissertation contains three essays on ethnic politics in Africa. The first explains why the Hutu-Tutsi cleavage became salient in Rwanda in the 1950s and not in Burundi. An analysis of the historical record rules out greater discrimination against the Hutu, pre-colonial institutions, and ethnic demography as explanations for this variation. It argues that the local politics of ethnicity explains these different national outcomes because information about national politics was scarce and the government was not a source of significant patronage. It suggests that local variation in the extent to which Hutu and Tutsi were part of the same clans explains why ordinary Hutu were able to mobilize as Hutu in some parts of Rwanda.;The second essay exploits the overlap between crop production and ethno-regional groups to examine whether African leaders benefit their co-ethnics using Agricultural taxation. It shows that cash crop farmers who are ethnically identified with the head of state face higher taxes and democratic regimes impose lower taxes. This paper demonstrates that farmers facing fewer alternatives face higher taxes. It argues that African leaders can reduce the number of alternative candidates in their home areas because they are better at selecting and monitoring local intermediaries at home.;The final essay presents a novel explanation for the failure of opposition parties in Africa to mount a serious challenge to unpopular regimes. Rather than focusing on how powerful presidents can use patronage to destroy the opposition, it argues that strong presidencies inhibit the formation of opposition coalitions because any presidential candidate selected by the opposition would be permanently empowered over other members of the coalition, regardless of any power-sharing pacts reached before the election and because, lacking access to state patronage, opposition candidates cannot offer pre-election inducements to potential junior partners. It investigates how Kenyan opposition parties were able to form a coalition and oust the ruling party in 2002 after failing to do so in two previous elections and argues that they succeeded because the ongoing process of constitutional reform made it probable that the powers of the president would be reduced before the next election.