The Historical Origins of Communal Violence in Africa: Common Pool Resources-Driven Trust and Its Contrasting Effects on Violence

This study shows that variations in violence across communities in Africa can be traced back to the proportion of common-pool resources (CPRs) in historical ethnic homelands, which determines current levels of trust in local chiefs or neighbors. Combining individual-level trust survey data with historical data of the ethnic homeland’s geographical features, this study finds that higher levels of CPRs-driven communal trust raises the number of militias’ battle casualties against external groups but reduces violence against in-group civilians. Evidence from diverse identification strategies suggests that the relationships are causal. Moreover, this study shows that the penetration of state power to local communities alleviates the offensive nature of communal trust. These findings not only highlight the contrasting causal effect of in-group trust on communal violence, which is internally pacifying yet externally combative, but also reveal its relational nature, whose attributes are determined by the community’s connectivity with the state.