IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

State Capacity and Violence: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide

Author Info

  • Leander Heldring
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Exploiting local variation in state capacity within Rwanda I investigate the link between state capacity and violence. Using a disaggregated measure of the intensity of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, I establish that greater local state capacity led to greater conflict intensity. I proxy modern state capacity with its precolonial counterpart, measured by the total time a district was incorporated in the precolonial kingdom. This ‘duration of incorporation’ measures the cumulative effect of the centralizing forces in the kingdom and acts as a proxy for state capacity. Since the kingdom expanded through conquest and consolidated through patronage relations revolving around cattle, I instrument the duration of incorporation with the geographical suitability for cattle. This strategy confirms the main result. State capacity, while usually associated with greater public good provision and higher GDP, played a central role in the mass killings in Rwanda.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

    File URL: http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/pdfs/csae-wps-2014-08.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Paper provided by Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford in its series CSAE Working Paper Series with number 2014-08.

    as
    in new window

    Length:
    Date of creation: 2014
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-08
    Contact details of provider: Postal: Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ
    Phone: +44-(0)1865 271084
    Fax: +44-(0)1865 281447
    Web page: http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/Email:


    More information through EDIRC

    Keywords: State capacity; violence; Rwanda;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

    as in new window
    1. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2013. "Pre‐Colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(1), pages 113-152, 01.
    2. Hoyt Bleakley & Jeffrey Lin, 2012. "Portage and Path Dependence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(2), pages 587-644.
    3. William Easterly, 2006. "Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings," Working Papers 93, Center for Global Development.
    4. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2006. "Robust Inference with Multi-way Clustering," NBER Technical Working Papers 0327, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Ticchi, Davide & Vindigni, Andrea, 2009. "Persistence of civil wars," POLIS Working Papers 130, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    6. Philip Osafo-Kwaako & James A. Robinson, 2013. "Political Centralization in Pre-Colonial Africa," NBER Working Papers 18770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-79, April.
    8. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2009. "Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space," Working Papers 2009-8, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-88, November.
    10. Acemoglu, Daron, 2005. "Politics and economics in weak and strong states," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1199-1226, October.
    11. Blattman, Christopher & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "Civil War," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt90n356hs, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Marijke Verpoorten, 2005. "The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide: A Detailed Analysis for Gikongoro Province," Population (english edition), Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED), vol. 60(4), pages 331-367.
    13. Nathan Nunn, 2009. "The Importance of History for Economic Development," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 65-92, 05.
    14. Verpoorten Marijke, 2012. "The Intensity of the Rwandan Genocide: Measures from the Gacaca Records," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-26, April.
    15. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
    16. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1994. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," NBER Technical Working Papers 0151, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nicola Gennaioli & Ilia Rainer, 2007. "The modern impact of precolonial centralization in Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 185-234, September.
    18. William Easterly & Roberta Gatti & Sergio Kurlat, 2006. "Development, democracy, and mass killings," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 129-156, June.
    19. Osafo-Kwaako, Philip & Robinson, James A., 2013. "Political centralization in pre-colonial Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 6-21.
    20. Louis Putterman & Valerie Bockstette, 2000. "States and Markets:the Advantage of an Early Start," Working Papers 2000-12, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    21. Andre, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-47, January.
    22. Bellows, John & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "War and local collective action in Sierra Leone," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1144-1157, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

    as in new window


    Cited by:

    1. Cornelius Christian & James Fenske, 2015. "Economic shocks and unrest in French West Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    2. Bonnier, Evelina & Poulsen, Jonas & Rogall, Thorsten & Stryjan, Miri, 2015. "Preparing for Genocide: Community Work in Rwanda," SITE Working Paper Series 31, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Stockholm School of Economics.

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Access and download statistics

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Richard Payne)

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.