Title:
One Team, One Nation: Football, Ethnic Identity, and Conflict in
Africa
by Ruben Durante (joint with E. Depetris-Chauvín)
Abstract:
Can successful collective experiences that prime patriotic sentiments reduce inter-ethnic tensions
and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa? We examine this question by studying the case of football.
Combining survey data for over 35,000 respondents in 20 countries with information on over 70
official games by African national football teams between 2000 and 2015, we document that
individuals interviewed in the days following a victory of their country's national team are 3 to 4%
less likely to report a strong sense of ethnic identity than those interviewed in the days just before
the match. The estimated effect is sizable (i.e. a 20% decrease in the average probability of
ethnic self-identification), and robust to controlling for country-year, language group, and match
fixed effects. National team's victories are also associated with an increase in trust in others,
especially in people of different ethnicity, but have no impact on trust in the government or
support for the incumbent. We also find that social unrest (i.e, riots, strikes, protests, and
repression) significantly decreases in the two weeks following a victory in the Africa Cup of
Nations or the FIFA World Cup finals. Finally, using exogenous variation from close qualifications
to the CAN tournament, we find that countries whose teams (barely) qualified experience
significantly less conflict events in the six months following the qualification than countries whose
teams (barely) did not. Our findings suggest that, even in regions where ethnic tensions have
deep historical roots, transitory patriotic shocks can reinforce national identity, reduce inter-ethnic
mistrust and have a tangible impact on conflict intensity.