Who Governs? Colonial Education
and Regional Political Inequality
Joan Ricart-Huguet∗
November 30, 2016
Abstract
The regional composition of a government affects conflict, clientelism and public goods
provision in developing countries, many of which are former colonies. But what explains
how power is distributed across regions to begin with? Given the strategic nature of cabinet
formation, extant explanations focus on bargaining—leaders allocate portfolios strategically
to minimize unrest—but fail to consider long-term factors. Using a sample of 16 former British
and French African colonies, I find that some colonial districts were represented in postcolonial governments much more than others even adjusting for population. By combining
historical records and geospatial data, I show that this regional political inequality derives
from colonial investments in public (missionary) education in French (British) colonies but
not from other colonial investments, levels of development during colonialism or pre-colonial
factors. I argue that post-colonial ministers are a byproduct of a civil service recruitment
practice among European administrators focused on natives’ literacy rather than ethnicity.
Thus, regional political inequality after the end of foreign rule has a structural human capital
component which may mediate the relationship between colonialism and current political and
economic development.
JEL: F54, I26, N37, N47
∗
Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. Email: [email protected]. For
useful comments, I thank Carles Boix, Evan Lieberman, Marc Ratkovic and Leonard Wantchekon as well as Jennifer
Widner, Tim Parsons, Robert Tignor, Tsering Wangyal Shawa, Chris Parel, Bill Guthe, Torben Behmer, Brandon
Miller de la Cuesta, Romain Ferrali, Costantino Pischedda, Rajesh Ranganath and seminar participants at the
American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Princeton University and the WZB Berlin Social Science
Center. I am grateful to Elise Huillery and Bob Woodberry for sharing the relevant data. Jeremy Darrington and
Elizabeth Bennett helped me locate multiple data sources. Seth Merkin Morokoff, Luise Zhong and Bruno Schaffa
provided excellent research assistance.
1
1
Introduction
The regional composition of a government is important to understand clientelism, public goods
provision, and conflict prevention in developing countries. On distributive politics, Hodler and
Raschky (2014, p. 995) use data on 126 countries to show “that subnational regions have more
intense nighttime light when being the birth region of the current political leader.” Franck and
Rainer (2012) focus on primary education and infant mortality and present similar findings for
18 African countries. Kramon and Posner (2016, p. 1) present evidence from Kenya showing
that, beyond the president, “ministerial appointments come with real power to impact distributive
politics.”1 On conflict, Arriola (2009) shows that increasing cabinet size reduces the probability of
a coup against political leaders by accommodating diverse groups; while Cederman et al. (2010)
show that “ethnoregional” groups recently excluded from government are more likely to instigate
coups and civil wars. But what explains the the share of ministers hailing from each of the country’s
districts to begin with? More generally, what explains the regional distribution of political power
in a country?
Existing literature focuses on the short-term strategic environment of government formation. A
large literature emphasizes the importance of post-election bargaining between ideological parties,
usually led by a formateur (Baron, 1991), to explain cabinet composition in democracies (e.g.
Laver and Shepsle, 1996; Strom et al., 1994; Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, 2008). The emphasis
on bargaining extends to developing countries and former colonies (Roessler, 2011). In those often
less democratic settings, political scientists have long emphasized regional and ethnic differences,
which are seen as a more important cleavage than ideology in the bargaining process (Horowitz,
1985; Rothchild and Olorunsola, 1983). The formateurs or “chief executives [tend] to allocate
key political and economic positions according to ethnic considerations” (Keller, 1983, p. 259), a
practice described by Rothchild as “regional balancing” or “ethnic arithmetic.”2
While short-term bargaining is indeed important, the literature has ignored longer-term factors, such as a region’s population size or its level of development, that may may provide a more
structural and fundamental explanation of cabinet formation. This structural dimension is difficult
to study because the formation of a state and its political leaders constitute a long and endogenous historical process in Europe (Abramson, 2016; Tilly, 1990) and elsewhere (Boix, 2015). To
alleviate the problem of historical endogeneity, I take advantage of East and West Africa’s colonization and decolonization shocks, respectively around 1900 and 1960, because the colonizer
1
See Kramon and Posner (2013) for a long list of studies on distributive politics in Africa.
For instance, “President Kenyatta’s announcement of three ministerial appointments from Nyanza province in
July 1969 was clearly calculated to appease the aggrieved feelings of the Luo people following the assassination
of Tom Mboya, one of Kenya’s founding fathers” (Rothchild, 1970, p. 605). Existing literature argues that the
colonizer is indirectly responsible for these post-colonial rebalancing practices.
2
2
rapidly changed the structural conditions of the colony and then exited two generations later.3
The end of European rule was a key moment for state formation because these colonies established
their first-ever independent cabinets.4 To learn about the origins of political leaders, I use over
900 ministerial biographies for the 16 former British and French colonies in East and West Africa
from 1960 to 1970.5 I complement these biographies with a large set of data sources that includes
subnational pre-colonial and geographic characteristics, colonial maps with district boundaries,
and disaggregated colonial investment records. Throughout the paper, I use “region” as the term
for subnational unit often employed in the literature (e.g. “regional inequality”) and “district” to
refer to the specific administrative unit that defines my unit of analysis.
I find that some colonial districts were represented in government much more than others, as
proxied by the share of ministers born in that district, which I term regional political inequality.
Figure 1 uses the cases of Nigeria and Senegal to exemplify that some districts punched above
their weight and others below, even if we take population into account by subtracting population
shares from minister shares. For example, Bornu in Nigeria had 9% of the 1960s minister-years
but only 4.5% of the country’s population.6
In this paper, I show that colonial investments in education—but not development more
generally—are important to explain the distribution of power in post-colonial governments. In
other words, the share of ministers hailing from a district depends on colonial district education
rather than on the levels of district development during colonialism. I argue that European officials in Africa, under severe budget constraints (Young, 1994), recruited educated locals for the
colonial civil service and even for participation in (largely toothless) legislative councils (territorial
assemblies in French colonies). These “évolués” (evolved) or “Europeanised”—different terms with
similar racist connotations—reduced operating costs because they were paid lower wages than their
European counterparts and provided useful local knowledge to Europeans (Lawrance et al., 2006).
Most civil service jobs, such as accountants, teachers, doctors and a variety of administrators,
required numeracy and literacy (Sharkey, 2013). Hence, districts with a more extensive provision
of primary education were better represented in the colonial civil service and legislature.
3
While most colonies became independent around 1960, the start of colonization obviously varies. Ghana was a
colony by the mid 19th century but Niger was colonized in the early 20th century and Malawi became a protectorate
only in 1907.
4
Other regions such as Latin America and parts of Asia also became independent from European rule in the
19th or 20th century and established their first-ever cabinets, as opposed to rule by an emperor, a royal court or
“tribal elders.”
5
The sample consists of the eight French West African (AOF) colonies as well as the main eight territories under
the British Colonial Office (CO): Benin (formerly Dahomey), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana
(Gold Coast), Guinea, Kenya, Malawi (Nyasaland), Mali (French Soudan), Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal,
Sierra Leone, Tanzania (Tanganyika), Uganda and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia).
6
Figures 10 to 13 in the Appendix show that severe disproportionalities exist across the 16 British and French
colonies.
3
Figure 1: Minister-year shares by district of birth (1960-1971)
Nigeria
minister-years share - population share
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Note: The left figures show the percentage of ministers born in a particular district of the former colony. The right
figures subtract district population shares to that percentage.
Unequal district presence in the colonial civil service and legislatures had consequences for
post-colonial governments: if literacy and numeracy learned in school were transferable to the civil
service, so administrative and organizational skills learned in the civil service were transferable
to politics. Although colonial legislatures were rubber stamp assemblies and African bureaucrats
had little power until the 1950s, native legislators and civil servants acquired a relevant skill set,
which I term “colonial incumbency advantage,” that included experience in public affairs and name
recognition. Regional inequalities persisted in post-independence governments because Europeans
had little concern for “regional balancing” during colonialism.
The importance of colonial education for later regional political inequality raises another question. What explains differences in colonial educational investments across districts to begin with?
Ricart-Huguet (2016) provides evidence that the root cause of higher education—as well as infrastructure and health investments—was the existence of pre-colonial trade in geographically
advantageous locations rather than natural resources, a favorable disease environment or even
4
settlers, as extant research suggests. Geographic features, notably natural harbors and capes, led
some places to become centers of pre-colonial trade, which increased settlement and investments
during colonialism. While pre-colonial trade increases colonial education, it is not a good predictor
of the post-colonial distribution of power (Section 5). Since trade is an indirect cause of regional
political inequality, we can only understand the latter if we focus on colonial education.
There are other possible long-term explanations for regional political inequality that I consider
but find no support for in the paper. First, investments could be epiphenomenal to pre-colonial
local characteristics. Recent research shows that pre-colonial political centralization improves
current development outcomes.7 The pre-colonial kingdoms of Dahomey (Southern Benin) and
Buganda (Central Uganda), for example, likely developed more political organizational skills than
acephalous societies in Northern Benin or Eastern Uganda. Pre-colonial advantages could persist
especially in East and West Africa because the colonial period was brief and colonial states were
presumably weak (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982; Herbst, 2000). However, the British and the French
empires did not invest more in pre-colonially centralized societies nor are these more represented
in post-colonial governments.Pre-colonial political institutions and Native Authorities were useful
for revenue collection and maintaining order, but the locus of power was the colonial state.
Second, the importance of colonial education could be the result of district economic or institutional development more generally. I proxy district development with infrastructure and public
health investments, levels of taxation, settlers and size of the colonial administration to show that
these proxies of overall development do not affect district minister shares. Finally, district minister
shares are not simply a function of population size (Figure 1). This stands partly in contrast to
Francois’ et al. (2012, p. 1) finding that bargaining processes result in ministerial positions being
“allocated proportionally to population shares across ethnic groups” in a set of African countries.8
In sum, this paper makes three main contributions. First, I collect new data sources in order
to show that current theories of cabinet formation, with their focus on short-term bargaining, are
incomplete. Second, I provide evidence that colonial education is the key long-term factor behind
regional political inequality. Third, most existing literature examines the role of colonialism for
development (Nunn, 2009) or democratization (Woodberry, 2012; Wilkinson, 2015). Instead, I
focus on a political outcome—the regional distribution of power—that has been shown to matter
for conflict, clientelism and public goods provision. The rest of the paper proceeds as follows.
Section 2 develops the argument. Section 3 discusses the scope conditions and provides historical
context. Sections 4 and 5 present the data and results, respectively. Section 6 concludes.
7
For instance, “light density at night, paved roads, immunization, literacy, and infant mortality rates” (Bandyopadhyay and Green, 2016, p. 471; see also Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2013). These findings are consistent
with Diamond’s (2012b) claim that “the most important factor behind [good institutions] is the historical duration
of centralized government.”
8
They argue, formalizing and extending Arriola (2009), that avoiding political turmoil is the main reason for
this strong correlation between population and minister shares.
5
2
The civil service origins of post-colonial leaders
Cabinet composition is essential to understand who governs. I focus on the executive rather
than the legislature for at least two reasons. First, legislatures around the world, even in nondemocracies, take population into account when devising constituencies which usually have a fixed
number of seats, thereby addressing regional political inequalities by design.9 Second, cabinets
are important because the executive is the most important branch of government in the usually
less-democratic context of developing countries and former colonies (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982;
Bratton and van de Walle, 1997).
I define a district’s representation as the share of cabinet members—usually ministers, hence
the use of the two terms interchangeably throughout the paper—that were born in that particular
district. Considering all districts in a country provides the district distribution of power for that
country in a given year. Some districts can be represented in government more than others because,
unlike in legislatures, there is no formal rule that allocates cabinet seats to districts or any other
group. Regional rebalancing (Rothchild, 1970) is the informal rule or mechanism that intends to
avoid the exclusion from the cabinet of some regions and groups that might otherwise threaten
with secession, violence or unrest. If we let minik be the total number of ministers born in district i
and country k, then the district share of ministers is simply %minik = 100 PNminik . For instance,
i=1
minik
a district with no ministers (0%) is surely under-represented in the executive. In the remainder of
this section, I explain why we should expect regional political inequality to be rooted in colonial
education and the actions of administrators. I start by considering what is arguably the main
reason for colonialism throughout history: profit.
2.1
Budget constraints and education-based recruitment
European colonialism was an exploitative enterprise (Chi-Bonnardel, 1973; Darwin, 2012) and
economic profit was one of the main motivations for the colonial enterprise in South America,
Africa and Asia (Diamond, 2005). The metropole constantly put pressure to reduce the quantity
of funds, especially grants-in-aid, available to colonial governments (Constantine, 1984, p. 14,
p. 84; Gardner, 2012, p. 9). British and French African colonies were expected to be financially
self-sufficient in all domains other than the military, which meant very little financial support for
colonial administrators. Hence, the generation of local revenue and minimization of costs were
paramount for the viability of the colonial state—what Young (1994, p. 124) terms “the revenue
imperative.” And yet colonial states were often short in administrative personnel and are described
as being “thin on the ground” and “skeletal” (Young, 1994, p. 124). In this context of scarcity,
9
Figure 14 in the Appendix shows the parliamentary seats allocated to each colonial district in Senegal (Sy,
2009, p. 21). Malapportionment is the instrument governments use to try to deviate from the population criterion.
6
what strategies did European colonial officials follow to increase the public finances of the colonial
state and reduce its expenditures?
On the revenue side, the British and French colonial states taxed settlers and locals. However,
taxing settlers was difficult for various reasons, such as their political connections to the metropole
and their outsized influence on the colonial state. Settlers in Kenya, for instance, went as far as to
create the European Taxpayer’s Protection League to shift the tax burden away from Europeans to
the native population (Gardner, 2012, p. 98). International trade tariffs were fundamental sources
of revenue, especially for maritime colonies. Domestically, Native Authorities and local chiefs acted
as agents of local taxation (Mamdani, 1996; Suret-Canale, 1971).
On the expenditure side, there was an important cost-minimization practice: European colonial
administrators selected qualified natives to join the civil service, initially in the lower echelons and
by the 1950s also in positions of higher responsibility. While these administrators might have
preferred to hire other Europeans, colonial budget constraints induced them to minimize costs by
recruiting Africans that were paid lower wages to fill the ranks of the civil service in each colony.10
Sharkey (2013, p. 165) illustrates this practice: colonial administrators “from the start had been
training and hiring African men as petty government employees, who typed and filed papers,
surveyed plots of land, taught in government schools, disbursed medicines, counted revenues and
more.” Civil service recruitment was largely a function of education because numeracy and literacy
were paramount to perform any of these functions. Numeracy and literacy were also important
for membership in colonial legislatures. Lugard (1922, p. 78) considered that Western education
had seen “remarkable results”: “[T]he Europeanised African [racism pervades the book], defined
by its education and Christian morals, occupied the positions of importance. For example, they sit
in the Legislative Councils.” This focus on education stands in contrast to a historically rich but
often underspecified literature that focuses on putative differences between ethnic groups during
colonialism (Horowitz, 1985; Ejiogu, 2007), such as whether Europeans considered the group to be
a “martial race” (Parsons, 1999; Echenberg, 1991; see also Section 3).
I argue not only that selection into the civil service and legislative councils was a function
of district education, but also that Europeans disregarded district population. To anchor the
argument, consider a colony with district A (1,000 inhabitants, 20 educated) and district B (500
inhabitants, 40 educated). If administrators needed 30 new civil servants, one reasonable option
would be to recruit more men from the larger district A in order to “balance” each district’s
presence in the colonial state. Instead, disregarding population implies, in expectation, selecting
10 from district A and 20 from district B. As a consequence, A becomes over-represented compared
to B and gains a disproportionate weight in the colonial state. These imbalances existed because
Europeans had little concern for the strategic “regional rebalancing” in which post-colonial leaders
10
See Cooper’s (1996) account of wage discrimination in British and French colonies in Africa.
7
would later engage (Rothchild and Olorunsola, 1983).11 In sum, men were selected in higher
numbers than their district population would warrant not because of some ethnic trait—these
were perhaps useful pretexts—but because of the number of educated individuals in the district.
2.2
Incumbency advantage and regional political inequality
Unequal district presence in the colonial state had important consequences for the distribution
of power after independence: just like literacy and numeracy learned in school were transferable
to the civil service, skills acquired in civil service and in colonial legislatures provided those overrepresented districts with an incumbency advantage as colonies transitioned to independence.
Colonial legislative councils were typically rubber-stamp legislatures until the late 1950s. Only
in 1956 did the loi-cadre Defferre empower colonial executives and legislatures of French African
colonies, and the process was similarly slow in British colonies. Nonetheless, they provided a
relevant political skill set and even allowed some future leaders to build a base of support prior
to independence (e.g. Senghor in Senegal, Obote in Uganda) thanks to their membership in the
political structure of the colonial state. The advantage derived from membership in the civil service
was not directly of a political nature. And yet, belonging to the colonial civil service entailed a
position of prestige, and even name recognition—important mechanisms of incumbency advantage.
It also garnered the individual experience in bureaucratic and management skills, especially as he
would climb the ladder to more senior positions, something that became more common after
World War II in both empires.12 Members of the colonial legislatures or councils did not have to
be popularly elected by their constituents—they were often appointed, especially before World War
II—in order to gain experience, political skills and name recognition. Hence, I argue that political
leaders in the early post-colonial period are largely a byproduct of education-based recruitment
into the colonial state. Figure 2 presents the basic causal chain. Perhaps because of the prevalence
of military rule in many former colonies during the Cold War (Decalo, 1990), the literature has
not taken education seriously enough as a root source of power in that time period.
Finally, it is worth noting that the explanation provided here is far from attributing virtue
or a fulfillment of the “white man’s burden” to the logic of selection on education. Rather, the
argument moves beyond the well-known ethnic “divide and rule” logic (Horowitz, 1985)—with postcolonial regional rebalancing as its counterpart—by positing instead a rational and self-interested
explanation for the actions of colonial administrators. In the remainder of this section I present
testable implications of the argument.
11
Wilkinson (2015) shows that the regional and ethnic imbalances in British military recruitment in South Asia
were very large and had consequences for post-colonial politics in India and Pakistan.
12
See No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe for a fictional account set in colonial Nigeria.
8
Figure 2: Causal chain from colonial district investments in education to colonial district minister
shares
Colonial politics
Educational
investments
Post-colonial
cabinet shares
Colonial
civil service
2.3
Testable implications
The main hypothesis is that levels of colonial education by district should predict district minister
shares in the post-colonial period. The counterfactual is therefore at the district level: between two
otherwise identical districts, the district with higher colonial educational investments should gain a
higher share of ministers after colonialism. The sign of the main prediction is homogeneous across
colonies and empires, but the effect size could be smaller in British colonies because officials engaged
in more rebalancing strategies at independence. For example, Nigeria’s North-South cleavage is
partly due to the “[British] manipulation of the political situation just before independence in
such a way as to facilitate northern leadership at the center” (Rothchild, 1970, p. 602) and hence
avoid Northern alienation in the new country, especially since they were the most populous region.
This is an important difference of extent between empires, even if some former French colonies like
Benin also suffered from regionalism. Rebalancing efforts in British colonies at independence and
afterwords were a response to their more extensive use of divide and rule compared to the French
(Wucherpfennig et al., 2015). Therefore, the effect of colonial education should be higher, or at
least not lower, in French than in British colonies (implication 1).
There are other implications deriving from my argument. The importance of colonial education
should be larger in civilian governments than in military governments because jobs in the administration and legislature of the colonial state were civilian (implication 2). Relatedly, many if not
most post-colonial ministers should have been members of the colonial civil service or legislatures
if indeed these are two important mechanisms (implication 3). The education recruitment mechanism does not apply to the colonial army because most military leaders had not been members
of the colonial civil service nor had they sat in colonial legislatures. If anything, in French and
British colonies in Africa and Asia, administrators would actively recruit more from poorer areas
and groups (Wilkinson, 2015; Echenberg, 1991; Parsons, 1999) where the opportunity cost of joining the colonial army was foregoing subsistence agriculture, an activity with low returns, rather
9
than an urban wage. Ministers with a military background should therefore be less educated than
those with a civilian background (implication 4). Finally, the importance of colonial education
should be larger in countries that became independent from European powers in an orderly manner
and in agreement with the colonial power (implication 5) than in countries that became independent less orderly or more drastically. These should have undergone more elite replacement, with
outsiders to the colonial state taking new leadership roles and thereby reducing or even eliminating
the incumbency advantage we should observe in orderly transitions to self-rule.
3
Context
Latin America and especially sub-Saharan Africa are arguably the best suited regions to study
the effects of colonial investments on regional political inequality for several reasons. First, colonialism meant a radical shock to the political organization of society in these regions because
centralized governments (e.g. the Inca Empire, Abyssinia) were the exception in the pre-colonial
period. That is not the case in Eurasia, for instance, where by the 1500s many peoples “were
already living under state governments” (Diamond, 2012a, p. 19). The external imposition of
institutions in Latin American and much of Africa alleviates historical endogeneity with respect
to colonial state formation processes because native populations had limited influence in the creation of the colonial polity: colonies of the same empire, whether British or French, had the same
institutional structure. Second, East and West African countries had little time to learn from
their neighbors’ post-independence experience because of the sudden transitions to independence
they experienced.13 In that sense, we can take advantage of a double colonial shock that started
around 1900, prompted by the Berlin Conference, and ended around 1960. Third, and relatedly,
investments were largely decided by outsiders—European colonial administrators and traders—
rather than the native population, thereby limiting the latter’s agency.14 Fourth, most European
empires put in place standard data collection procedures that allow within and between-country
comparisons. Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America gained independence much earlier, however, which complicates biographical data collection on political elites. Further, their
post-colonial elites were composed of criollos rather than indigenous population.
In the remainder of this section, I begin by briefly discussing existing qualitative literature
and then confirming its insights quantitatively. I then argue that colonies in East and West
Africa lacked a defined investment strategy and that decisions were often decentralized, with local
officials having much decision-making power in both empires. While colonial investments in the
13
For the 16 countries in the sample, Guinea becomes independent in 1957; Ghana in 1958; Senegal, Benin, Niger,
Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria and Mauritania in 1960; Sierra Leone and Tanzania in 1961, Uganda in
1962; Kenya in 1963; and Malawi and Zambia in 1964.
14
In the context of religious conversion, Nunn (2010, p. 147) describes colonial Africa as a “natural laboratory
to examine how an external intervention [missions] can have lasting impacts.”
10
region were not random (Huillery, 2010; Ricart-Huguet, 2016), the deficient coordination and the
lack of well-defined investment rules make them far from deterministic and suggest some haphazard
within-colony variation.
3.1
Uneven colonial investments
There is much qualitative evidence that colonial practices and treatment of the native population
was unequal within colonies. This is what Horowitz (1985, p. 151) first called the “ethnic distribution of colonial opportunity,” which he discussed mostly for Africa and Asia, whereby some
groups or regions such as the Wolof (Western Senegal) or the Baganda (Central Uganda) were
more favored—or less exploited—than others. To give one striking example: as late as in 1960,
“the Kakwa and Lugbara [in Northwestern Uganda] had between them a single student [out of
281] enrolled in Makerere University [the oldest university in East Africa]. The Baganda, though
only 16 percent of the population, had nearly half” (Horowitz, 1985, p. 239, p. 154). The British
are well-known for their policy of divide and rule in Nigeria and elsewhere, which suggests that
investments were rather unequal between a colony’s districts. For example, Northern Nigeria was
considered more developed by Lord Lugard and hence apt for indirect rule—which meant low investments. Northern districts later became laggards educationally and economically. The British
ruled more directly and invested more in Southern Nigeria. That led Igbos (Eastern Nigeria), for
instance, gained prominence in the civil service thanks to the extensive presence of missionaries in
the region.
Colonial regional inequality in British colonies was often justified using ethnic stereotyping
(Mamdani, 1996): “the Baganda proper [central Uganda] are eager to become educated [...] with
a zest which is almost pathetic” (Herbertson and Howarth, 1914, p. 297). By contrast, the French
policy of assimilation was blind to considerations of region or ethnicity, in theory. France had “lofty
ideals for colonial rule, at the heart of which was the so-called mission civilisatrice or civilizing
mission” (Sharkey, 2013, p. 156). In practice, French officials also used ethnic stereotyping: “the
Wolof soldier [Western Senegal] was spoiled and had become a terrible snob,” no longer fit to be a
tirailleur [soldier] (Echenberg, 1991). In sum, historical evidence suggests that unequal treatment
of the native population existed across regions in both empires with respect to education but also
with respect to other issues such army recruitment, which was regionally unequal in French African
colonies (Echenberg, 1991), in British African colonies (Parsons, 1999; Ejiogu, 2007) and in South
Asia (Wilkinson, 2015).
My data shows that these descriptions are captured by colonial investments data. Figure 3
presents examples for Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria, but the very unequal pattern applies without
exception to education, infrastructure and health investments in each of the 16 colonies whether
we consider absolute or per capita levels.
11
Figure 3: Public health and education by district (1910-1939)
Cote d'Ivoire
Public health staff per 100,000 people
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D s
al
oa
Ko
ng
Sa Lah
ss ou
an
dr
a
N M
zi an
co
m
Ba oe
ss
a
Ba m
La oul
gu e
ne
s
g
O Man
di
e
Se nne
gu
G el
Bo ou a
nd ro
Ta ou s
go ko
ua u
n
Ba as
ou
l
D e
al
o
G a
ui
g
L lo
N ah
zi ou
co
Sa m
ss oe
an
Ag dra
ne
In by
de
n
Ta ie
b
As ou
s
Ba inie
s
La sam
gu
ne
s
0
0
10
10
20
20
30
30
40
50
40
Public health staff
Students per 100,000 people
1,500
2,000
Students
0
Pl
Ka
Be no
So nue
k
Ba oto
u
Bo chi
rn
I u
Pl lori
at n
e
O au
Ka goj
Ad ts a
am ina
a
Ka wa
bb
N a
ig
Za er
ria
O
O yo
w
e
W rri
C On arr
am it i
e sh
Ab roo a
eo ns
ku
O ta
n
Be do
C n
al in
ab
a
Ije r
La bu
go
s
at
ea
N u
Ka ige
ts r
i
Ad Be na
am nue
aw
Ilo a
Ka rin
b
O ba
g
Bo oja
Ba rnu
uc
Za hi
r
K ia
C S ano
am ok
er oto
oo
n
Ab W s
eo arr
ku i
Ije ta
O bu
n
La do
g
Be os
ni
n
O Oy
ni o
ts
O ha
C wer
al ri
ab
ar
0
500
5,000
1,000
10,000
15,000
Nigeria
Note: The graphs show the distribution of investments by district in two former colonies. The left graphs show
the raw number of public health staff (doctors and nurses) and students per colonial district while the right graphs
adjust that number per 100,000 people. While the order of districts in the right graphs somewhat changes, overall
inequality remains similar.
3.2
Uncoordinated colonial investments
The ‘command and control’ of [the British] empire was always ramshackle and
quite often chaotic. To suppose that an order uttered in London was obeyed round
the world by zealous proconsuls is an historical fantasy (although a popular one).
Darwin (2012, p. xii)
We may expect investments in East and West Africa to be unequal. The ample historical
evidence suggesting the lack of a systematic investment strategy is at first surprising even in
the colonial backwaters—in the eyes of Europeans—of East and West Africa. While district
expenditures presumably responded to needs, “no explicit investment strategy can be found in
[French colonial] local budgets. Motivations reported at the beginning of each local budget explain
the general level of annual resources but do not motivate the spatial distribution of public goods
12
provision” (Huillery, 2009, p. 181). British documents present a remarkably similar focus on
description and administration rather than on policy. “Colonial tax and spending patterns did
not follow a similar logic throughout British Africa” (Frankema, 2011, p. 147) because “[Britain]
did not strive to apply a common financial policy to the various dependencies” beyond “general
instructions [...] from the Secretary of State for the Colonies” (Stammer, 1967, p. 194).
The lack of district and colony-level investment strategies is less surprising if we realize that
colonial states were very far from Weberian states (Herbst, 2000). Knowledge of the territory
was limited and communication was rudimentary, which in turn made policy coordination difficult
between the core and the periphery of a colony (Darwin, 2012, p. xii; Delavignette, 1968, p. 63).
Short distances by today’s standards were long absent adequate roads or railroads, as was the
case for most of East and West Africa especially before World War II. “Physical distances and
[lack] of communication” meant that the “administrative organization [in French West Africa] was
officially centralized but effectively decentralized,” making district heads “the real chiefs of the
French empire” (Huillery, 2009, p. 181; Delavignette, 1968).
District heads in both empires had much latitude in local policy and were in charge of administration, taxation, justice and other public services (Suret-Canale, 1971, p. 72). They were
also in charge of relations with village chiefs, and district heads partly relied on them for policy implementation and revenue collection, often using translators.15 Local chiefs in French West
African villages were a useful but certainly subordinate figure whose “influence [was limited] to
small areas” (Huillery, 2009, p. 181). Similarly, “local chiefs [in British territories] had a guise of
autonomy in their local jurisdictions, but they were actually guided and supervised by the British
colonial administrators” (Strang, 1994, p. 149).16
District heads, and colonial administrators more generally, could provide some exogenous variation in investment allocations (e.g. education vs. transportation infrastructure) due to their
backgrounds and their limited choice of colonial destination. Regarding French West Africa, (Cohen, 1973, cited in Huillery, 2009, p. 197) explains that there were several types of district heads.
Some were former soldiers, others were metropolitan civil servants and yet others hailed from the
École coloniale and other elite universities (grandes écoles) that trained future French civil servants. The picture is similar for British colonies. Applicants to the Colonial Office, often educated
at prestigious universities, could list some colonies where they would like to serve. Even if one of
their choices was respected, they had little leverage on the particular district or job they were to
15
For a collection of essays on the importance of translators and interpreters in French and British colonial Africa,
see Lawrance et al. (2006).
16
Lugard’s (1922) promotion on indirect rule is well-known for some British colonies, but its practice was not
unique to them. Sharkey (2013) considers the difference in that regard between the two empires a matter of degree,
consistent with the move by Gerring et al. (2011, p. 378) “to understand systems of [direct and indirect] rule along
a continuum that reflects the degree of central control.”
13
undertake within the particular colony they were assigned. In sum, district heads with a background in elite British or French schools might have devoted a higher share of public revenue to
education than to the police, while they opposite could be true for colonial administrators with a
military background.
4
4.1
Data
Minister data
The Europa Year Book publications are almanacs that contain, among other data, the list of cabinet
members for every country-year in the world since 1960. That source is sufficient to identify
the population of interest, but the Europa almanacs do not contain any further biographical
information. For that purpose, I turn to the World Biographical Information System (WBIS),
which contains over six million biographies including those of many political leaders. Figure 15
in the Appendix includes a page of the Europa Year Book for Ghana in 1960 and a page of the
WBIS file containing biographies of Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. Combining
the two sources is essential to know who was in power after independence in the set of 16 countries
under study. WBIS entries often contain the occupation, town and year of birth of the minister
alongside other information compiled from multiple biographical sources. I complemented WBIS
with historical dictionaries and other sources often obtained from Google Scholar or Google Books.
The end result merges 16 country datasets, one for each colony in the sample, with ministeryear observations from 1960 to 1970. Most political elite data have the title of minister, but
the data also include the president and prime minister, state ministers and the president of the
legislature.17 The year of birth and the town of birth are available for 84% of the ministers and
91% of minister-years. The remaining are individuals whose basic biographical information could
not be found on WBIS or tracked in online sources. Some of them held their ministerial post for
only one year or are secretaries of state, a rank below ministers, that were nonetheless listed as
cabinet members in the Europa Year Books. When available, the data also include covariates such
as the function they performed in the cabinet, a measure of the function’s prestige, and in some
cases the specific schools they attended and their ethnic group, among other variables.
For the purposes of this paper, cabinet members should be born roughly between 1900 and
1940. Colonial investments and therefore records are scant before the early 1900s, while those
17
I use ministers and cabinet members indistinguishably because over 90% of the sample is composed of ministers,
although occasionally there are state ministers, members of national military council and indeed the president of
the legislature is an important figure and yet not part of the cabinet.
14
born after World War II were too young to be ministers in the early post-colonial period.18 Figure
4 shows that most ministers were born in the first four decades of the 20th century, a period for
which we have detailed colonial almanacs for both empires. The oldest minister was born in 1893
and the youngest in 1942. The first decile of ministers was born before 1910, the median in 1922
and the 99th percentile in 1937. Only the oldest decile of ministers would have started schooling
before the first available years of colonial records.
.06
Figure 4: Birth years of ministers in French and British colonies (1960-1970)
Density
.04
Colonial records data
0
.02
British
French
1880
1900
1920
1940
Year of birth
Note: The histogram shows that the distribution of birth years for ministers largely matches
the colonial records data (1910-1939).
The other necessary piece of information is birth place, which I georeference for each minister. I
combine this information with district-level colonial maps in order to determine the district in which
a given individual was born. After many administrative and political changes since independence,
as much as 80% of colonial district boundaries remain in place as of 2015. To illustrate it, Figure 18
in the Appendix shows a colonial map of Nigeria. The boundaries of Sokoto in the northwest, for
instance, fully remain as of 2014, albeit now split into three smaller areas. Niger, on the other side
of the border, follows a similar pattern. In a few countries like Kenya administrative boundaries
have changed more over time.
The maps in Figure 5 show the result of combining birth locations with colonial district boundaries. We can see clustering along the coast in some countries, while some districts do not have any
ministers in the whole decade.19 Figures 10 to 13 in the Appendix show this variation quantitatively
by district and across the 16 colonies to establish that some districts in the newly independent
18
As Young (1994, p. 101) mentions, “the professionalization of colonial services [in Africa] did not really take
hold until after World War I.”
19
Around 10% of cabinet members were born in countries other than those they served in as ministers, and they
are excluded from the analysis. Many of them were French or British colonial administrators that were ministers
15
countries were represented in government much more than others, as proxied by the share of ministers born in that district (left graphs). Disparities remain after subtracting minister shares from
population shares (right graphs), with some districts punching above their weight and others below. For example, Bornu in Nigeria has 9% of the minister-years (23, the second most after Lagos)
but only 4.5% of the country’s population. Finally, Table 1 and Figure 6 show some descriptive
statistics. Cabinets in British colonies were 20% larger than in French colonies. That could be a
function of British colonies being larger, among other reasons. There is little difference between
empires regarding the average cabinet member’s length in office, and no difference if we exclude
Niger.
Figure 5: Birth locations of cabinet members in East and West Africa
Note: The maps show ministers from French colonies in blue and from British colonies in red. The diameter of
the circle indicates the number of ministers born in a particular town and range from 1 to 11 in Freetown (Sierra
Leone) and 12 in Saint Louis (Senegal).
Table 1: Individual data on cabinet members (1960-1970)
French colonies
British colonies
ministers
382
531
minister-years
1,403
1,686
average cabinet size
15.94
19.16
Note: The table shows the number of ministerial biographies used for each empire. Cabinets
in British colonies were larger, perhaps in part because their populations were also larger.
during the colonial governments and sometimes even after independence born in places such as India, South Africa,
Martinique and Guadeloupe, besides the United Kingdom and France. A few others were African but born in a
country (e.g. Togo, Western Sahara, Southern Rhodesia) different than the one in which they served as ministers
since the AOF federation permitted much mobility within colonies.
16
6
4
2
Mean = 3.29
_______________________________________
Mean without Niger = 3.45
Mean = 3.67
______________________________________
British colonies
B
M eni
au
n
Bu rit
a
rk
ni
in
a
a
Fa
Se so
ne
ga
l
M
a
G li
ui
C
ne
ot
e
d' a
Iv
oi
re
N
ig
er
Si
G
er han
ra
a
Le
on
N e
ig
er
Za ia
m
bi
M a
al
a
U wi
ga
nd
a
Ke
n
Ta ya
nz
an
ia
0
Average number of years in office
Figure 6: Average length of minister tenure
French colonies
Note: The means by empire are averages of individual cabinet members, not means of country averages. The
difference between 3.67 and 3.29 (4.5 months) is significant (p < 0.1) if Niger is included; it is not otherwise. The
figure restricts the analysis to year 1963 onward when British East African countries are also independent. Starting
in 1960 increases the difference in length of tenure between empires by an additional 2 months to 6.5 months. This
is not due to East Africa becoming independent later, since cabinet stability is higher than in the three British
West African colonies.
4.2
Colonial and pre-colonial data
I combine the biographies and historical maps with colonial and pre-colonial data. Research on
colonialism has largely eluded the causes and consequences of investments, perhaps because it is
difficult to systematically collect subnational data across colonies and empires. To the best of
my knowledge, this paper presents the most extensive data on colonial investments at the district
level by combining records for French West Africa—collected by Huillery (2009)—and for the main
eight African British colonies under the Colonial Office—original data collection.20
An important advantage is that record-keeping procedures were very similar within each empire,
owing partly to the fact that British and French colonies reported to the Colonial Office or Ministère
des Colonies, respectively. This is why the yearly Comptes Définitifs (Final Budgets) and the
Blue Books, as the Colonial Office called its yearly reports owing to the color of the cover, were
mostly standardized across colonies.21 This comparability does not directly extend to Sudan, for
instance, which was under the control of the Foreign Office. The British National Archives and
20
List of former colonies: Benin (formerly Dahomey), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana (Gold
Coast), Guinea, Kenya, Malawi (Nyasaland), Mali (French Soudan), Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania (Tanganyika), Uganda, Zambia (Northern Rhodesia).
21
They were not the only empires to keep such records. The Portuguese and the Belgian records I examined are
similarly detailed.
17
the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer keep most of the original records. Huillery (2009) collected
the original French records for selected years in the 1910-1939 period.22 I collected British colonial
records in various libraries from 1915, 1920, 1927, 1928 and 1938 as a function of availability and
completeness. Figure 17 in the Appendix shows a page of a Blue Book for Uganda and a page
of a Compte Définitif for Benin. Records are often organized or can be grouped by district as
these pages show, and they sometimes contain detailed information on demographics, education,
infrastructure investments and other activities. One important shortcoming is that records in both
empires have many gaps so, while technically the data on colonial investments are a panel, it is a
highly unbalanced one.23
Colonial records are complemented with a set of sources that provide information on precolonial geographic, geologic and socioeconomic covariates that could affect investment decisions
and hence confound empirical estimates. Some of that data for French West Africa also come from
Huillery, such as distance between the district capital and the coast, altitude, navigable rivers
and main pre-colonial trading posts. I extend those variables to include British colonies, and
sometimes I utilize additional sources for the whole continent such as a map of navigable rivers by
C.S. Hammond (1921). Besides geography, disease environment could also have affected settlement
and investment decisions. Altitude is a proxy for disease environment, notably for malaria (World
Health Organization, 2016), but a rough one. To better capture disease environment, I use a
geocoded map of malaria prevalence around 1900 (Lysenko and Semashko, 1968) and FAO tse-tse
fly data (Alsan, 2015). Those data are important in tropical Africa, “often referred to as ‘the
white man’s grave’ [and where] malaria, yellow fever and dysentery could wipe out an army with
appalling efficiency” (Darwin, 2012, p. 138). I also geocode several historical natural resource
maps. However, the importance of natural resources is limited to investments in infrastructure
and they do not explain investments in education or health, let alone minister shares. A map by
Hubert (1922) that I georeferenced is likely the most comprehensive historical map on the issue for
West Africa. Kuhne (1927) produced an impressive worldwide map. I employ an early publication
by the United States Geological Services (USGS, 1921) only as a complement because, although
it has world coverage, the data are restricted to large deposits.
Crops like coffee and large plantations like cotton were important in some colonies. Because
some of these crops are an endogenous choice of the colonizer, I use geological soil characteristics
such as nutrient and oxygen availability (FAO/IIASA, 2012). These are current measures and
22
Technically the panel extends to 1956, but data are mostly missing post-1939. I have averaged French colonial
data from 1910 to 1939 and from 1919 to 1956 and the correlation between these two averages of the same variables
across districts is usually over 0.9, which is not surprising since most data are pre-1939.
23
Occasionally information on particular variables is missing throughout the period. For example, records for
Malawi and Mauritania do not contain disaggregated student data. This paper, however, only requires a crosssection since the outcomes of interest are post-colonial.
18
hence far from ideal, but they are useful to the extent that soil quality does not change dramatically over time (Wantchekon and Stanig, 2015, p. 27). Otherwise, the paper purposely avoids
current databases on natural resources and diseases that are commonly used in some well-known
studies (e.g. see Parker (1997) in Acemoglu et al. (2002)) because they raise reverse causality concerns. Finally, the paper includes data on relevant colonial socioeconomic characteristics, such as a
historical map on the presence of Islam across the continent (Bartholomew, 1913). For some other
pre-colonial characteristics, notably whether the district was located in a pre-colonial kingdom or
in an acephalous society, I extend Huillery’s variables to include British colonies. I also draw from
Murdock’s (1959) dataset on pre-colonial ethnic group characteristics because it provides useful
proxies of pre-colonial economic and political development, such as intensity of agriculture, settlement patterns, the size of local communities and level of political centralization. Tables 12 and 13
in the Appendix provide summary statistics of the main variables.
4.3
Unit of analysis
There are multiple reasons to consider districts rather than ethnic groups as the unit of analysis.24 First and most obviously, the colonial state was divided into districts, and hence so are
the corresponding historical data. Second, colonial districts were still the relevant administrative
and political units after independence. We observe high persistence of colonial district boundaries
even as of 2015, especially in French West Africa but also in British colonies. Many of these
boundaries have changed surprisingly little—with some exceptions like Kenya and Ghana—and
current districts are often partitions of a larger colonial district. Third, the list of districts in a
country is fixed for a particular point in time. That is not the case for ethnicity. While using
ethnic groups as units of analysis can be adequate in some contexts, there is little agreement on
what the “list of ethnic groups” should be (Fearon, 2003).25 Fourth, and similar to strategic marriages between to-be monarchs in Medieval and Modern Europe, Adida et al. (2014) show that
cross-ethnic marriages are frequent among African leaders. Assigning ethnically mixed leaders to
a particular ethnic group is not straightforward. Creoles are a special category of this problem,
and while not as common as in South America, in some West African countries like Sierra Leone
24
At first, ethnicity appears as another viable unit of analysis besides colonial districts. After all, Horowitz (1985,
p. 150), quoting Kasfir (1972), argues that traditional ethnic leadership during colonialism “sanctioned the notion
that an ethnic group was a valid basis for an administrative unit [...] and provided an institutional expression for
cultural unity.” In British colonies, more so than in French ones, districts sometimes tried to reflect the colonizer’s
understanding of ethnic social organization. In that case, districts would just be a proxy for ethnicity. While
this is true in some well-known cases such as Uganda and Kenya, superimposing Murdock’s (1959) map of ethnic
homelands with colonial district maps shows the two spatial units have little overlap.
25
The debate around primordialism and constructivism shows the difficulties of determining ethnicity (Hale,
2004). Brubaker (2002, p. 164) explains that “groupism” is the “tendency to take discrete, sharply differentiated,
internally homogeneous and externally bounded groups as [...] fundamental units of social analysis.” Groups rarely
have such strict characterization, of course, but such practice leads to reifying ethnic groups, Brubaker argues, in
an attempt to turn Anderson’s (1983) imagined communities into more concrete units.
19
they were an important group already in the 19th century. In sum, ethnicity is not factual like
birth place: everyone is born into only one district. Migration at a very young age into a district
with more primary education happened occasionally but it would bias the importance of education
downward, since the coding of birth place does not depend on later migration.
5
Results
I begin by presenting correlational patterns between district minister shares, education and population. Then I combine several models and methodological approaches to disentagle the effect of
education from other possible explanations, including other colonial investments, district development and pre-colonial political centralization. I also test the theoretical implications discussed in
Section 2.
The first simple models examine the share of within-country district variation explained by
population and education:
Yik = β0 + β1 populationik + β2 educationik + ηk + ik ,
(1)
where Y is the logged district share of ministers for district i in country k. Minister shares and
colonial investments are logged in all models to reduce right skew.26 Country fixed effects are
denoted by η and they explain about 9% of the variation: distributions of power are somewhat
unequally unequal across colonies of the same empire. Models 1-4 show that population and
education increase the adjusted R2 well above 9% in both empires, as we might expect. I use
missionaries for British colonies and non-missionary teachers for French colonies advisedly because
colonial education was largely in the hands of missionaries in British colonies but largely in the
hands of the state in French colonies.
The correlations in Table 2 could be driven by a few particular colonies where public or private
(missionary) education had an unusually large impact, such as Senegal and Nigeria, respectively.
Models in Figure 7 use equation 1 but estimate the education coefficient separately for each country.
It is imprecisely estimated (n = 19.5 districts, on average) but positive in 14 out of 16 countries
and of similar magnitude in most colonies. In Kenya, for instance, a 1% increase in the number of
missionaries is associated with a 0.5% increase in a district’s minister share.
26
The magnitude of the education effect is actually larger in non-logged models, but a few outliers are highly
influential because of non-normality and hence these models are not informative of the importance of colonial
investments for an average district.
20
Table 2: Shares of district cabinet members as a function of population or education
Population, logged
(1)
British
0.51∗∗
(0.08)
(2)
British
(3)
French
0.53∗∗
(0.08)
(4)
French
0.34∗∗
(0.09)
Missionaries, logged
Teachers, logged
Observations
Adjusted R2
200
0.23
200
0.22
112
0.22
1.16∗∗
(0.17)
112
0.50
Notes: †p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. All models include colony fixed effects. All models
include clustered standard errors by colony.
Figure 7: Correlations between post-colonial minister shares and colonial educational investments
Ghana
Benin
Kenya
Burkina Faso
Malawi
Cote d'Ivoire
Nigeria
Guinea
Sierra Leone
Mali
Tanzania
Mauritania
Uganda
Niger
Zambia
Senegal
-.5
0
.5
1
Missionaries, logged
-1
0
1
2
Teachers, logged
3
Note: The figure reports regression coefficients where the logged district share of ministers is predicted by the level
of educational investments, which are logged missionaries in British colonies and logged public teachers in French
colonies, controlling for logged district population.
Models in Table 3 include important colonial and pre-colonial controls for each empire to reduce
omitted variable bias:
Yik = β0 + β1 educationik + β2 othereducationik + β3 otherinvestmentsik + X T β4 + ηk + ik
21
(2)
where outcome Y is once again the logged share of ministers born in district i and country k. β1 is
the coefficient of interest corresponding to public education in French colonies and private (Protestant missionary) education in British colonies. The complement to education is othereducation,
proxied by number of Catholic and Protestant missions in French colonies and government school
students in British colonies. I also include the two main other investments in each empire, infrastructure and health, since they might be confounding the effect of education. Besides country
fixed effects (η), I include a large set of controls (X) listed at the bottom of Table 3.
Table 3: Minister shares by district as a function of colonial education
Educational investments
Missionaries, logged
(1)
British
(2)
British
0.18∗
(0.05)
0.14∗
(0.04)
Teachers, logged
Students (government and aided schools), logged
(3)
French
(4)
French
1.03∗
(0.37)
1.00∗
(0.39)
0.04
(0.04)
Missions, logged
0.20
(0.45)
Other investments and alternative explanations
Infrastructure expenditures, logged
Public health staff, logged
Population, logged
Pre-colonial trading post
Political centralization (Murdock)
Observations
Adjusted R2
0.04†
(0.02)
0.02
(0.06)
0.37∗∗
(0.07)
0.04
(0.25)
-0.04
(0.07)
200
0.29
0.03
(0.02)
0.02
(0.04)
0.35∗
(0.10)
0.04
(0.23)
-0.08
(0.07)
185
0.30
0.01
(0.08)
0.06
(0.18)
0.12
(0.16)
0.48
(0.76)
0.18
(0.20)
111
0.54
0.01
(0.08)
0.05
(0.19)
0.11
(0.15)
0.40
(0.74)
0.19
(0.21)
111
0.53
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in parentheses. All models include
colony fixed effects. They also include a large set of controls: geographic (distance from the coast, an indicator for
navigable rivers, a continuous measure for terrain ruggedness, malaria and tse-tse fly presence indices to proxy for
disease environment), geologic (noble and base metals indicators, a soil quality index), and socioeconomic (logged
population and area, prevalence of Islam and of slavery, pre-colonial agricultural development and settlement
patterns. French data lack health staff for Conakry, hence n=111 instead of 112.
The results are interesting in three respects. First, we observe education effects in both empires but they are type-specific: they derive only from public education in French colonies and
from private (missionary) education in British colonies. Public education in British colonies and
missionary education in French colonies are statistically insignificant. Coefficients are easy to interpret because this is a log-log regression (i.e. both the dependent and the independent variables of
22
interest are logged). In particular, a 1% increase in missionaries in missionaries in British colonies
leads to a 0.18% increase in minister shares for that district. In French colonies, a 1% increase in
teachers results in a 1.03% increase in missionaries, a larger effect. The education effect is linear
(Table 15 in the Appendix) and robust (p < 0.05) to excluding one country at a time and colonial
capitals (Table 16 in the Appendix).
Second, infrastructure and public health investments are not significant in either empire even
though these are reasonable proxies for district development. Spending more money on buildings,
roads, sewage and electricity—the four components of infrastructure investments in each empire—
or in more doctors and nurses—public health staff—does not increase the share of ministers born
in a district. A raw correlation between minister shares and infrastructure or health is positive
but statistically insignificant once population and education are taken into account.
Third, there are two other interesting null results. Recent literature strongly suggests that
pre-colonial kingdoms (pre-colonial political centralization) provide better public services today
(Gennaioli et al., 2013) and are more developed (Bandyopadhyay and Green, 2016). However, the
reason does not seem to lie on them being overrepresented after independence. The other null
finding concerns the role of pre-colonial trade, which I disentangle below.
5.1
5.1.1
Causality
The indirect role of pre-colonial trade
The role of pre-colonial trade deserves special attention because it is an important explanation
for colonial investments in both public and missionary education in French and British colonies.
Ricart-Huguet (2016) provides evidence that the root cause of higher district colonial investments
in education—as well as in infrastructure and health—is the existence of pre-colonial trade in geographically advantageous locations, rather than the presence of natural resources (Curtin et al.,
1995), a favorable disease environment (Alsan, 2015) or settlers (Acemoglu et al., 2001). Exogenous geographic variation, in particular natural harbors and capes, led some places to become
centers of pre-colonial trade (Jha and Wilkinson, 2012), which later increased colonial settlement
and investments in those locations. Table 14 in the Appendix shows that the large investment
inequalities between districts are best explained by pre-colonial trade and district population. In
particular, pre-colonial trading posts increase colonial education and distance from those trading
posts decreases it. Just as interesting for the purposes of selection effects, Table 14 also shows that
geographic characteristics, natural resources, soil quality and pre-colonial observable characteristics are statistically irrelevant to explain levels of colonial district education. Disease environment,
terrain ruggedness and ethnic group characteristics—including pre-colonial centralization and ethnic fractionalization at the colonial district level—, do not predict district educational investments.
23
Further, much variation remains unexplained. The error term may have a systematic component
due to unobserved factors. It also has a random component, some of which is likely due to haphazard factors such as the background of district heads (Section 3).
Table 4: Minister shares by district as a function of pre-colonial trade
(1)
British
0.36
(0.26)
0.02
(0.03)
Pre-colonial trading post indicator
Distance from post, in 100km
First trading post in colony indicator
Distance from first trading post in colony, in 100km
Pre-colonial centralization
0.11
(0.13)
200
0.22
Observations
Adjusted R2
(2)
British
0.49
(0.37)
-0.00
(0.02)
0.07
(0.10)
200
0.22
(3)
French
1.23∗∗
(0.31)
0.15†
(0.06)
0.10
(0.22)
112
0.34
(4)
French
0.79
(0.66)
0.04
(0.07)
0.21
(0.20)
112
0.27
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in parentheses. All models
include colony fixed effects. They also include a set of geographic controls (distance from the coast, an indicator
for navigable rivers, a continuous measure for terrain ruggedness, malaria and tse-tse fly presence indices to proxy
for disease environment).
Does pre-colonial trade also have a direct effect on regional political inequality? Recent research highlighting the importance of historical trade patterns for current outcomes suggests that
possibility (Jia, 2014; Gaikwad, 2014). Table 4 estimates the effect of trade on district minister
shares using four models which control only for pre-colonial factors—other than colonial district
population—to avoid post-treatment bias. Models 1 and 3 include all major coastal pre-colonial
trading posts as well as the geodesic distance of each colonial district capital to the closest post.
Models 2 and 4 use an indicator for the first trading post in each of the 16 colonies and its distance from each district capital within that colony. This alternative measure of early trade has
the advantage of going beyond coastal trading posts. Results show that, overall, pre-colonial trade
is a poor predictor of district minister shares. Only model 3 presents some supportive evidence
for the first trading post indicator, but the coefficient on distance from the first trading post is
in the wrong direction. In sum, pre-colonial trade is only an indirect cause of regional political
inequality, and colonial education is necessary to link that first cause to the outcome.
5.1.2
Alternative explanations
There are at least two plausible alternative explanations for the education effects we observe. First,
some of the recent literature on colonial legacies focuses on the importance of settlers for political
24
institutions. Indeed, Europeans settled in central locations that contained, among other facilities,
the best secondary schools in the colony. However, my argument rests on basic numeracy and
literacy, and colonial civil servants completed primary but not always secondary school. Further,
settlers are not highly correlated with district levels of education (ρ = 0.18) since the goal of
primary education was precisely to reach areas beyond the two or three districts of each colony
where most settlers lived. Column 1 of Table 5 shows that the size of the settler community in a
district does not predict minister shares.
Table 5: Other alternative explanations: settlers and district institutional and fiscal development
(1)
(2)
1.04∗
(0.43)
Teachers, logged
European population (settlers), logged
(3)
1.48∗
(0.45)
(4)
1.53∗
(0.47)
(5)
1.14∗
(0.34)
(6)
1.08∗
(0.33)
0.02
(0.07)
Administrative Staff, logged
0.23
(0.35)
Administrative Staff, Europeans, logged
0.12
(0.09)
Administrative Staff, Africans, logged
-0.02
(0.06)
-0.07∗
(0.02)
Head taxes collected, logged
Trading licenses taxes, collected, logged
0.06
(0.07)
Trade taxes per capita, logged
Observations
Adjusted R2
(7)
1.15∗
(0.35)
300
0.36
111
0.52
83
0.64
83
0.64
111
0.53
111
0.52
-0.17
(0.56)
111
0.52
Notes: †p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard
errors by colony in parentheses. All models include colony fixed effects. All models include colonial investments in
infrastructure and health as well as geographic, environmental, geological and socioeconomic controls. Models 2-7
are restricted to French West Africa because of data availability.
Second, teachers and missionaries might be proxying for levels of institutional or economic
development in the district. This is unlikely the case in British colonies where missionaries provided
almost all of the primary education, sought to spread their religious influence across the territory
(Wantchekon, 2016, p. 5) and sometimes purposely evangelized in remote areas. It is more likely
the case in French West Africa, where more district capacity in education was positively correlated
with more district capacity generally. Fortunately, Huillery (2009) includes data on administrative
capacity for French West Africa, proxied by the number of administrators and taxation levels
by district. As Lugard (1922, p. 232) put it, “[t]he payment of direct taxes is in Africa, as
elsewhere, an unwelcome concomitant of progress.” The size of the colonial state administration
varied widely between the main districts in a colony, ranging from having only a district officer in
25
remote districts to dozens of civil servants in the capital. Models 2, 3 and 4 in Table 5 show that
proxies for administrative capacity—the number of European, African or overall administrators in
the district—do not reduce the education effect and do not even predict district minister shares.
Models 5, 6 and 7 show that taxation does not affect the magnitude or significance of the main
coefficient of interest either.
5.1.3
Regional fixed effects
Models thus far include a large set of controls motivated by the existing literature. However,
while reverse causality is ruled out by design, omitted variable bias remains a concern. Regions
within a former colony might differ in some unobserved characteristic. For instance, although I
include various pre-colonial (and hence pre-treatment) ethnic group characteristics, there could
be confounder that differentiates districts mostly populated by the main ethnic group in Burkina
Faso (Mossi) or in Uganda (Baganda) from the rest of the colony. To account for potential omitted
variable bias, I include regional fixed effects. In Guinea, for example, I create indicators for the
four historical regions that share physical and cultural characteristics (Maritime, Middle, Upper
and Forested Guinea). In Uganda, the indicators correspond to the British provinces and currently
regions of Buganda (Central region), Eastern, Northern and Western Uganda. The model is thus
akin to equation 2 but now η is a set of 58 regional indicators rather than 16 country indicators.
Table 6: Models with regional fixed effects (FE)
Missionaries, logged
(1)
British
region FE
0.28∗∗
(0.08)
(2)
British
region FE, full model
0.14†
(0.06)
Teachers, logged
Observations
Adjusted R2
200
0.18
200
0.26
(3)
French
region FE
(4)
French
region FE, full model
1.22∗∗
(0.24)
112
0.48
1.16†
(0.56)
111
0.52
Notes: †p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors
by colony in parentheses. All models include regional fixed effects, 35 in British colonies and 23 in French colonies,
which make up the total 58 regions. For instance, the 15 colonial districts of Uganda are divided between the Central,
Eastern, Northern and Western regions. Models 2 and 4 include additional geographic, environmental, geological
and socioeconomic controls. Also, all additional controls (e.g. distance from the coast, disease environment, etc.)
are of little relevance and jointly explain just 4% (French) to 8% (British) of the variation.
Table 6 presents the results. Models 1 and 3 include only regional fixed effects. Models 2 and 4
additionally include the full set of controls of equation 2. This is a demanding empirical strategy.
In former British colonies, we are including 35 regional fixed effects and 20 other covariates in
a cross-section of 200 observations. In French West Africa, we are including 23 regional fixed
26
effects and the same 20 covariates in a cross-section of 112 observations. The upside is that we
can increase our confidence in the causal interpretation of the educational effect because we are
examining variation in educational investments within a region of a colony while also including the
set of geographic, environmental, geologic and socioeconomic controls. The most surprising finding
is the stability of the point estimates between models 2 and 4 of Table 3 (0.14 for British colonies
and 1.00 for French) and models 2 and 4 of Table 6 (0.14 again for British colonies and 1.16 for
French). The coefficients are less precisely estimated but they remain significant and stable in
magnitude. Also, all additional controls (e.g. distance from the coast, disease environment, etc.)
are of little relevance in either empire and jointly explain just 4% (French) to 8% (British) of the
variation. Most unobserved variation seems to be captured by using either a large set of controls
or regional fixed effects.
5.1.4
Method of direct estimation
I use one additional method to increase confidence in the causality of the estimate: a new machine
learning method that directly estimates observation-level counterfactuals (Ratkovic and Tingley,
2016). Intuitively, the causal effect of the treatment (colonial district education) on the outcome
(post-colonial district minister shares) requires comparing the outcome for an observed value of
the treatment to a value for the same observation, but with a treatment level just slightly above or
below the observed value. With these two values, we could calculate the effect of a change in the
treatment on the outcome. The problem, of course, is that we do not observe the counterfactual
outcome (Holland, 1986), and therefore it must be estimated.
Unlike matching methods, which are restricted to binary treatments and require an estimated
propensity score as an intermediate step, this method estimates each counterfactual outcome directly using a high-dimensional regression model, specifically an extension of a Bayesian Lasso
to non-parametric causal inference.27 Under the assumption of no unobserved confounders, the
method returns consistent causal estimates while making minimal assumptions on the potential
outcome functions and the data generating process.
I run the model for the whole sample (n = 312), and it includes all covariates used in equation
2, their interactions, and the interactions of these variables with the treatment, all estimated
using smooth spline functions. Consistent with the linear models above, I find that the overall
effect of education is positive. The average treatment effect across the 312 districts is 0.22 and
27
In particular, Ratkovic and Tingley (2016) use cubic splines capturing main effects and interactions between
the treatment and covariates to estimate the difference between the observation with a treatment of value t, namely
the level of educational investments, and a treatment increased by an arbitrarily small amount (δ) at value (t + δ).
With the fitted and predicted values, we can estimate the partial derivative of the outcome with respect to the
treatment for each observation in the data.
27
Figure 8: Causal effects by country using the method of direct estimation
Note: The boxplots present the education effect size for each district, grouped by country, because the method of
direct estimation (Ratkovic and Tingley, 2016) provides counterfactual estimates for each observation or district.
the 95% confidence interval ranges between 0.09 and 0.36.28 Because we are directly estimating
the counterfactual for each observation, we can also observe the causal effect of a δ increase in
education for each district. As Figure 8 shows, the effect size is greater than 0 for most districts
in all countries except for Burkina Faso. This is an interesting outlier already suggested by the
correlations in Figure 7. Unlike the other 15 former colonies, the Upper Volta (currently Burkina
Faso) was carved out of Niger and Ivory Coast as late as in 1919 and lost its colony status in
1932. It became a colony again in 1947 until independence in 1960. While this may or may not be
related to its outlier status, it is the most obvious difference between Burkina Faso and the other
colonies. In the remainder of this section, I shift the focus from causality to examining broader
testable implications of my argument.
5.2
Testable implications
Section 2 provided several implications of my argument. The most important one is a sort of
placebo test concerning the distinction between civil and military governments. In particular, I
argued that the effect of colonial education should be higher under civilian governments (implication 2). The models in Table 7 follow equation 2, but now each country-year in the sample either
has a civil or a military government as described in the Europa Yearbooks. In other words, Y
28
I obtain the confidence interval by bootstrapping the estimation for each observation 100 times.
28
becomes the share of ministers from each district i under civilian rule (models 1 and 2) or military
rule (models 3 and 4) by grouping all the military and civilian years separately. Results remain
for civilian governments. Military governments, however, only predict minister shares in model 3,
which is a simple population-adjusted model with country fixed effects.29 The coefficient goes to
0 and is insignificant as soon as we control for health and infrastructure investments—or various
other combinations of controls that reduce endogeneity.
Table 7: Civil vs. military governments
Teachers/missionaries, logged
Population, logged
(1)
Civil
(2)
Civil
(3)
Military
(4)
Military
0.38∗∗
(0.09)
0.40∗∗
(0.05)
0.26∗∗
(0.08)
0.39∗∗
(0.05)
0.04
(0.06)
0.04†
(0.02)
-0.00
(0.09)
311
0.35
0.12†
(0.06)
0.05
(0.07)
0.03
(0.03)
0.06
(0.07)
0.10†
(0.05)
-0.01
(0.01)
-0.04
(0.05)
311
0.48
Public health staff, logged
Infrastructure expenditures, logged
Pre-colonial political centralization
Observations
Adjusted R2
312
0.34
312
0.46
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in
parentheses. All models include colony fixed effects.. Models 2 and 4 include additional
geographic, environmental, geological and socioeconomic controls.
These heterogeneous effects raise another issue. The importance of colonial education in civilian
governments could be driven by governments where the head had been a member of the colonial
civil service or administration, which included low-level bureaucrats but also judges, doctors (Cote
d’Ivoire’s Hophouet Boigny), colonial school inspectors (Mali’s Modibo Keita), teachers and academics (Ghana’s Nkrumah and Senegal’s Senghor). I split the country-years based on whether the
head of government had been a member of the colonial administration. Table 8 shows that results
are not hinging on the leader having a civil service background. In other words, the importance of
colonial education does not extend to military governments but it extends to governments where
the leader had not been a member of the colonial administration.
Another implication I discussed is that colonial education should be more important in countries that became independent in an orderly manner and in agreement with the colonial power
(implication 5) than in countries that became independent less orderly or more drastically. As it
29
A bivariate correlation is also positive (ρ = 0.2), which is not surprising since military elites did not necessarily
hail from the most uneducated or underdeveloped districts.
29
Table 8: Effects of educational investments by colonial civil service (CCS) past of the government
head
Teachers/missionaries, logged
Observations
Adjusted R2
(1)
CCS head
(2)
CCS head
(3)
non-CCS head
(4)
non-CCS head
0.25∗∗
(0.06)
312
0.42
0.20∗∗
(0.06)
311
0.43
0.27∗∗
(0.08)
312
0.33
0.20∗
(0.09)
311
0.34
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in parentheses. All models include
colony fixed effects. Models 2 and 4 include additional geographic, environmental, geological and socioeconomic
controls. The models split the data in two groups by country-year based on whether or not the head of government
had been a member of the colonial civil service (CCS head of government or formateur). Models 3 and 4 show that
the relevance of educational investments for civil governments is not simply driven by the formateur strategically
appointing members with a similar career background.
Table 9: Orderly vs. disorderly transitions from colonial rule to independence
Teachers/missionaries, logged
Observations
Adjusted R2
(1)
Orderly, all
(2)
Orderly, civil
(3)
Disorderly, all
(4)
Disorderly, civil
0.17∗
(0.07)
233
0.38
0.20∗
(0.08)
233
0.36
0.30∗
(0.03)
78
0.30
0.30∗
(0.03)
78
0.30
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in parentheses. All models
include colony fixed effects. All models include additional geographic, environmental, geological and socioeconomic
controls. Models 2 and 4 restrict the sample to country-years under civil government. The differences in magnitude
between model point estimates are insignificant.
turns out, 12 out of 16 countries in the sample become independent in an orderly manner, and
even in the other four there was no large scale violence. Independence agreements were usually
negotiated between the colonial and native elites, preparing the ground for an orderly succession
of power.
Guinea, Zambia, Malawi and Kenya constitute the exception for two reasons. Guinea voted
not to remain in the French Union and that led to a breakdown of the relationships with France.
“Three months after independence almost all French civil servants were gone. Gone too was French
economic aid” (Berg, 1960, p. 556), which had increased in Guinea as elsewhere in French West
Africa after 1945. Conflict between locals and the settler minority is the fundamental reason for
the moderately violent 1950s in the three British colonies. The 1950s Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya
is perhaps the most well-known. Transition to independence in Kenya was peaceful only on the
surface (Darwin, 2012) and violence did not escalate further in part thanks to the Lancaster House
Conferences (1960-1963), which provided a forum for intense negotiations on Kenyan self-rule.
30
In Zambia and Malawi there was no comparable revolt but much smaller scale violence directed
against the dominance of the white settler minority (Darwin, 2012; Tedla, 2011).
Table 9 shows that the effect of education is not higher in orderly transitions whether we
compare all governments in those countries (models 1 and 3) or just civilian governments (models 2
and 4). One possibility is that the argument extends to somewhat disorderly and rushed transitions
(Guinea, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya). Ironically perhaps, these four countries did not have any
military governments in the 1960s and have almost always been ruled by civilians, hence the
identical results for models 3 and 4. The more likely possibility is that East and West Africa
are not the best settings to test that implication of the theory since anticolonial movements and
transitions there were much less violent or even peaceful compared to Algeria in the 1950s, India
in the 1940s or many Latin American countries in the early 1800s.
5.3
Colonial politics and administration as mechanisms
There are multiple mechanisms through which unequal colonial education could lead to regional
political inequality. Adjudicate among them econometrically would require an additional data
collection effort. Rather, I provide some evidence that colonial political bodies and the colonial
civil service are two important paths connecting basic colonial education with post-colonial politics.
In Figure 9 and Table 10, I use the biographical data to show that membership in the civil service
careers or in colonial legislatures were the norm among ministers in most colonies (implication 3).30
In fact, around 80% of ministers were either appointed or elected members in colonial legislatures—
or occasionally even in colonial cabinets—, colonial civil servants, or both. By contrast, fewer than
20% were soldiers in the colonial army in any given country.
Table 10: Ministerial presence in the colonial administration and colonial politics (pre-1960)
All colonies
British colonies
French colonies
colonial civil
service only
12.12%
13.16%
10.27%
colonial
legislature only
both
37.64%
33.93%
43.80%
30.13%
26.79%
40.63%
neither
16.32%
12.91%
22.32%
Note: Colonial civil service is coded 1 whenever the minister held a job in the colonial
administration. Colonial legislature is coded 1 whenever the minister was a member of a
colonial legislature or council. Data are available for 178 of 382 AOF ministers (47%) and
348 of 531 CO ministers (65%). Data on these two variables are more likely to be missing for
less relevant ministers, and hence these may be overestimates to the extent more important
ministers were more involved in colonial politics and administration.
30
The two figures are actually lower bounds since data are not available for all ministers and yet the denominator
includes missing data.
31
Figure 9: Percentage of cabinet members in the colonial civil service, colonial political bodies, and
colonial army by country
40
Mean = 43%
______________________________________
20
Mean = 35%
_______________________________________
aw
nz i
er an
ia
ra
Le
on
Za e
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N a
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Ke
ny
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Bu
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Be
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G n
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Si
Ta
al
ha
M
U
G
ga
nd
a
0
Percentage of cabinet members
60
Colonial civil service
British colonies
French colonies
100
80
Mean
= 61%
____________________________________
20
40
60
Mean = 68%
_______________________________________
British colonies
i
ni
n
S
C ene
ot
g
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al
d'
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Ke
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a
ria
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ig
e
N
on
Le
Si
er
ra
G
ha
na
0
Percentage of cabinet members
Colonial politics
French colonies
15
Mean = 10%
____________________________________
5
10
Mean = 10%
_______________________________________
British colonies
G
u
M ine
au
a
rit
an
ia
S
C ene
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Za a
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M a
al
aw
i
0
Percentage of cabinet members
20
Colonial army
French colonies
Note: A simple t-test shows that mean differences between empires are not significant. Data
are lower-bound estimates because 29% of ministerial biographies do not contain information
on whether the minister had a career in the colonial civil service, politics or army.
32
These percentages are expected in one sense but unexpected in another. They are expected
because the literature on the colonial state highlights the importance of the colonial civil service
as a cradle of colonial elites (Young, 1994; Mamdani, 1996). Two individual cases illustrate the
mechanism. Diamballa Maiga was the son of a Songhai district chief and Niger’s minister for
Interior throughout the 1960s. Born in 1910, he was an “unwilling pupil and was actually forced
to school by the police.” However, “he flourished” in school [and eventually became] “a clerk
in the Finance Department from 1929 to 1940” (WBIS, 2014). Ousmane Camara from Senegal
came from an underprivileged and unstructured family and even had to change his name. While his
socioeconomic background was different to that of Minister Maiga, he explains in his autobiography
that “a bookish bulimia [boulimie livresque] with my friend Birane Wane [...] led us to devour all
of what the municipal library of Kaolack contained” (Camara, 2010, p. 28). Dedication ensured
his passage to the Lycée Faidherbe in Saint Louis (Senegal) and eventually to becoming one of the
first four judges of Senegal and later minister of Civil Services and Labor. These two examples are
interesting in their details but typical in their essence of the over 900 biographies in the dataset
that strongly suggest the relevance of the civil service as a mechanism.
The very high percentages of ministers in colonial legislatures is unexpected in another sense.
French territorial assemblies and British legislative councils were deliberative forums dominated
de facto and de iure by Europeans—i.e. often majority European legislatures—at least until the
1950s. They were mostly epiphenomenal insofar as important colonial decisions were concerned.
Perhaps that is why there is little emphasis in the literature on colonial legislatures. And yet, while
African colonial politicians had very little power, their political position entailed social prestige,
skills acquisition and name recognition—in short, incumbency advantage. Most ministers that
engaged in both civil and political careers were civil servants first (33.93%), but prior civil service
experience was not a pre-requisite to join a cabinet: 37.64% of the ministers only had a political
career. Clearly, the odds of being minister with neither type of experience were indeed low since
over 75% had developed at least one of these two careers. In the largely orderly transitions of East
and West Africa, both appear to be fundamental sources of incumbency advantage.
Table 11: Average years of education by empire and type of minister
All colonies
British colonies
French colonies
colonial army background
13.42
13.63
13.16
civilian background
15.60
16.15
14.54
p-value
0.01
0.02
0.37
Note: Colonial army background means that the minister had been a member of the colonial
army, regardless of his post-colonial career. The difference is in the expected direction in
both empires but only statistically significant in British colonies.
Finally, if education was more important in civilian governments, ministers with a military background should be less educated than those with a civilian background (implication 4). Ghanaian
33
Colonel Yeboah exemplifies a pattern explained by social historians of colonial armies (Parsons,
1999; Echenberg, 1991): “in those days a career in the army was for someone who did not have
an education. It was not considered a very attractive career. It was only for school drop-outs”
(Baynham, 1994, p. 22). And yet he became a minister in 1966 after the deposition of independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. Of course, his path to power was not based on either of the two
mechanisms discussed above but on a military coup. Table 11 shows that ministers with a colonial
army background had two fewer years of education than those with a civilian background. The
difference exists but its magnitude is actually smaller than one might expect and statistically insignificant when we consider French colonies alone. This is probably because the minority groomed
to be army officers were much more educated than the typical soldier. In sum, each implication
separately provides an indirect test of part of the argument and combined they
6
Conclusion
In this paper, I argue and provide evidence that regional political inequality does not result from
uneven economic development, pre-colonial political centralization or colonial investments in general, but from colonial investments in education in particular. Specifically, the origins of unequal
district representation in East and West Africa are rooted in differences in the provision of basic education across colonial districts. Numeracy and literacy were key for recruitment into the
colonial civil service and participation in colonial legislatures, the two breeding grounds of future
political elites. Explaining the origins of regional political inequality is important because it affects
clientelism, public goods provision and conflict, especially in settings with weak institutions such
as many former colonies and developing countries.
I estimate the effect of colonial education on post-colonial district minister shares using various
empirical strategies to increase confidence in its causal interpretation. These include within-country
regional fixed effects and a Lasso method that directly estimates a plausible counterfactual. Results
suggest that the effect of education is type-specific: it derives only from missionary education in
British colonies and only from public education in French colonies. Also, the effect of education
is larger in British than in French colonies. One possible reason lies in the extent to which postindependence leaders engaged in “regional balancing”, more prominent in British colonies because
colonial investments had been more unequal (Ricart-Huguet, 2016). Finally, my argument should
apply more to civilian than to military governments because most military leaders were neither
members of the colonial civil service nor of colonial legislatures. Using this implication as a placebo
test, I divide the data between civilian and military governments to show that colonial education
is irrelevant under military governments.
34
More generally, this paper shows that government formation can have a more historical and
structural component than the existing literature, largely focused on short-term bargaining, allows.
Bargaining occurs in former colonies as it does elsewhere, but it takes place within bounds set
during the colonial period even in East and West Africa, where external occupation was shortlived and shallow compared to Latin America, South Asia and Southern Africa.
With regard to public policy, these findings suggest that power could be better distributed
across a country’s regions by equalizing or rebalancing investments in basic or pre-tertiary education. A more equal distribution in education provision could lead to a fairer division of power a
generation later even in economic inequality across a country’s regions remains. This is a more
feasible public policy goal than eliminating wealth and development disparities across regions.
Finally, there are at least two important directions for future research. First, to what extent do
colonial investments affect current welfare, political participation and conflict in former colonies?
Existing research largely focuses on the long-term effects of colonial institutions on development
across countries (Acemoglu et al., 2001; Mahoney, 2010) or in a particular colony (Lee and Shultz,
2012). With a few exceptions (Huillery, 2009), there is little research that uses colonial investments data from multiple colonies or even less so across empires to better understand current
outcomes. Second, how does the regional distribution of power after independence affect the relationship between colonial investments and current outcomes? Political elites in the momentous
post-independence decade, the 1960s, could have altered longer-term colonial legacies. Examining
these downstream consequences of colonial investments could help us understand current political
and economic disparities in former colonies.
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41
Appendix
A
Tables and figures
Table 12: District summary statistics in British colonies
Variable
Obs
Mean
Std. Dev.
Min
Max
Minister-years share
200
4
5.17
0
23.46
Missionaries (Woodberry)
200
7.44
11.84
0
75
Missions
200
2.7
3.34
0
26
Teachers
15
68.47
63.53
0
285
Students
185
1137.09
2382.92
0
13764
Public health staff
200
11.63
25.47
0
232
Infrastructure expenditures
200
44085.89
153460.6
0
1551032
Railroad indicator
200
.5
.5
0
1
Pre-colonial trading post
200
.07
.25
0
1
Pre-colonial political centralization
200
2.36
.82
.04
4
District ELF (based on Murdock)
200
.43
.25
0
.94
Population
200
189727.6
343033.9
4309
3443207
Area, in km2
200
18880.26
24707.34
138.26
248403
Table 13: District summary statistics in French colonies
Variable
Obs
Mean
Std. Dev.
Min
Max
Minister-years share
112
7.14
8.55
0
47.45
Missionaries (Woodberry)
112
.41
1.48
0
10
Missions
112
.31
.74
0
3
Teachers
112
6.18
8.54
.43
71.43
Students
103
358.47
492.06
8
3724.94
Public health staff
111
9.39
11.69
0
70.8
Infrastructure expenditures
112
51240.38
130562
0
1150341
Railroad indicator
112
.3
.46
0
1
Pre-colonial trading post
112
.08
.27
0
1
Pre-colonial political centralization
112
2.56
.66
1
4
District ELF (based on Murdock)
112
.46
.21
0
.87
Population
112
116481.1
95748.38
2361
533000
Area, in km2
112
41319.36
79381.05
41.29
523825
42
Table 14: Determinants of colonial educational investments by district (1919-1939)
Pre-colonial trading post indicator
Distance from the first trading post in the colony, in 100km
African population, logged
Geography
Area in km2, logged
Distance from the coast, in 100km
Navigable river indicator (1910)
Terrain ruggedness
Malaria prevalence index (1900)
Tsetse fly prevalence index (1970)
Natural resources and soil quality
Gold, silver or diamonds indicator (1920)
Base metals indicator (1920)
Soil quality index (2000)
Pre-colonial characteristics
Ethnic Fractionalization Index
Prevalence of Islam (1910)
Agriculture (none to irrigation)
Settlements (nomadic to complex)
Pre-colonial political centralization
Slavery (absence to prevalent)
Constant
Observations
Adjusted R2
(1)
All colonies
(2)
British
(3)
French
0.95∗∗
(0.32)
-0.08∗
(0.03)
0.39∗∗
(0.10)
0.63
(0.41)
-0.09∗
(0.04)
0.42∗
(0.15)
1.41∗∗
(0.30)
-0.04
(0.03)
0.37∗∗
(0.05)
0.00
(0.10)
0.02
(0.03)
0.07
(0.13)
0.13
(0.31)
-0.12
(0.08)
0.11
(0.10)
-0.00
(0.15)
0.02
(0.04)
-0.09
(0.24)
0.06
(0.37)
0.04
(0.08)
0.27
(0.15)
0.03
(0.05)
-0.02
(0.02)
0.19
(0.13)
0.82
(0.49)
-0.20∗
(0.08)
-0.04
(0.14)
-0.20
(0.14)
0.10
(0.17)
0.02
(0.08)
-0.34
(0.23)
0.36
(0.28)
0.05
(0.16)
-0.04
(0.12)
-0.18†
(0.08)
0.05
(0.04)
-0.14
(0.29)
-0.14
(0.11)
0.20∗
(0.08)
0.04
(0.04)
-0.02
(0.10)
-0.07
(0.11)
-2.76∗
(1.26)
312
0.38
-0.17
(0.32)
-0.16
(0.11)
0.23
(0.13)
0.02
(0.06)
-0.05
(0.12)
-0.19
(0.16)
-3.36
(2.01)
200
0.35
0.07
(0.38)
-0.06
(0.14)
0.08
(0.10)
-0.02
(0.08)
-0.09
(0.16)
0.09
(0.11)
-2.49∗
(0.71)
112
0.61
Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard errors by colony in parentheses. All models include
colony fixed effects. The model is a simple OLS, akin to equation 2 in page 21, where educational investments are
logged for normality. This table shows that pre-colonial trade and district population are the only consistently
significant determinants of public (missionary) education in French (British) colonial districts.
43
Table 15: Linearity of the eduction effect
Teachers/missionaries, logged
Teachers/missionaries, logged squared
Observations
Adjusted R2
(1)
All
(2)
All
(3)
British
(4)
British
(5)
French
(6)
French
0.33∗∗
(0.08)
0.09
(0.06)
312
0.36
0.22∗∗
(0.07)
0.07
(0.06)
311
0.37
0.23∗
(0.07)
0.06
(0.05)
200
0.30
0.16∗
(0.05)
0.03
(0.05)
200
0.29
0.96∗∗
(0.21)
0.09
(0.09)
112
0.53
0.89†
(0.45)
0.20
(0.17)
111
0.54
Notes: †p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Notes: † p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. Clustered standard
errors by colony in parentheses. All models include colony fixed effects. and logged population. Models 2, 4, and
6 include additional geographic, environmental, geological and socioeconomic controls. Models assume that the
effect of education is linear, but we might observe a ceiling effect because in no country does a district concentrate
over 50% of ministers—if it did, the country would presumably be most unstable (Cederman et al., 2010). Hence,
we might observe a decreasing marginal effect of colonial education. The specifications in this table use the same
baseline model (equation 2 in page 21) but include a centered squared term for educators—teachers in French and
missionaries in British colonies. The term is very imprecisely estimated even in models 1, 3 and 5, which only
control for population and country fixed effects. In sum, there is no evidence of a non-linear ceiling effect of colonial
education on minister shares.
Table 16: Excluding colonial capitals: Minister shares by district as a function of colonial education
Educational investments
Missionaries, logged
(1)
British
(2)
British
0.14∗
(0.04)
0.11∗
(0.03)
Teachers, logged
Students (government and aided schools), logged
(3)
French
(4)
French
0.99†
(0.47)
0.95†
(0.47)
0.06
(0.03)
Missions, logged
0.21
(0.49)
Other investments and alternative explanations
Infrastructure expenditures, logged
Public health staff, logged
Population, logged
Pre-colonial trading post
Political centralization (Murdock)
Observations
Adjusted R2
0.03
(0.02)
-0.01
(0.08)
0.42∗∗
(0.07)
-0.21
(0.22)
-0.05
(0.06)
192
0.26
0.02
(0.02)
-0.03
(0.06)
0.39∗
(0.11)
-0.21
(0.21)
-0.08
(0.06)
178
0.26
-0.00
(0.08)
0.09
(0.20)
0.12
(0.20)
0.53
(1.04)
0.18
(0.22)
104
0.44
-0.00
(0.08)
0.10
(0.20)
0.10
(0.20)
0.46
(1.03)
0.18
(0.23)
104
0.44
Note: This table is identical to Table 3 but with the 16 colonial capitals at independence
excluded as a robustness check.
44
am
er
oo
Ije ns
bu
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Ad a Oy
amtsino
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45
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b
Kiirotnhali
amd l
buo
0
-10
-5
5
0
10
5
Percentage
10
15
am
p
Kr
C racusi
ap
ec Hhi
N oa o
av A st
Vo ro d
lt n a
Warivgo
as er
W
es Seaw
te Go fw
D rn n i
ag ak ja
Suom im
ny ba
a
As Wni
O ha a
bu nt
i
B as
L ir i
W awim
e ra
WBeknch
Akinn wai
M w eb i
a a a
Samp pim
lt on
Ahpong
an d
Keta
KuAcc ta
m ra
as
i
M
G Ad
M K on a
amra ja
p ch
SuSerusi
i
Asnyafwi
ha ni
W
es O nti
C ter buHo
ap na as
e c ki i
oam
W Wst
a
D Be sa a
ag k w
ow
N L mbai
a
Vovroawra
lta n a
M W rivgo
amen er
W p ch
Akinnon i
w ebg
a
Sa Bpima
l ir
Ahtpo im
annd
Ku Keta
m ta
Ac a s
cr i
a
0
-10
-5
5
0
10
5
Percentage
10
15
Figure 10: Minister year shares by district in British colonies I (1960-1971)
Ghana
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Kenya
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Malawi
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Nigeria
minister-years share - population share
rtr
o
Pse
Ka Baetaber
y
M wa lovuke
po m a
b le
Lurok wa
w os
AbKaingo
Seer labu
Br n co o
ok an rn
Menhga
k
Se Ndushill
M sh ol i
a ea
Senkoke
r y
Men a
M Ispikje
u
K oa
M a mb ka
w
Li azsem
vi a pa
Nngsbuka
am to a
So w ne
a
Fo Kalwela
rtj Lulomzi
a s o
Kameaka
s
Lusa on
m
Mnd a
C onaz
hi g i
ns u
al
i
46
Fo
Ab
e
Fo BBr al rco
rtr okovarn
os en le
e h
Ka I be ill
s r
Lusemokay
M w p
an in a
Mk g
M kuoyua
po M s
M rokpikhi
um o a
s
PeNdbwao
Se ta o
la
Sna uk
Ka Seer nge
w shenja
Li aKm eke
vi a bwe
Nng la a
M amstobo
az w n
e
Soabuala
Lulweka
Ka sa zi
Fo Kaslomka
rtj Lu amo
amnd a
a
Me z
C onsoni
hi g
ns u
al
i
0
-5
5
0
10
5
10
15
15
20
Percentage
20
25
Ki
W gez
es i
tn
Bu ile
so
ga
Te
M so
as
ak
a
To
C ro
en
Bu tra
d l
M am
ub a
Ka end
ra e
m
Bu oja
ny
or
La o
ng
An o
ko
Ac le
h
M oli
en
go
Ki
W gez
es i
t
M nile
a
Ka sa
ra ka
m
oj
a
Te
Bu so
da
Bu ma
ny
Bu oro
M sog
ub a
en
de
To
C ro
en
tr
La al
ng
Ac o
h
An oli
ko
M le
en
go
0
-10
5
-5
10
0
15
5
20
Percentage
10
25
KM
K was
SMh oahimwa
inrogamba
Kyi a ora
gn o
N Lomga
BUi sKojominda
haamndb i
ra baoea
m
UM ura
Bulabullo
kngu
MRoubaa
b f
K
N
Ba e ielwyiaji
gaKiwa a
Armlooslaa
RMaushyo
M
M uan sa a
Mpwnagy wsei
a po
D HSasnai wnai
ar i dtz
es Tngena
Tsuaal nidgai
ndaa a
m
M IUrinugru
w
Taafnipaa
MDo Pbozra
ik doara
in me
Md
MSonoasna
us g hi
omeai
a
BBi agA
ha aru
Karammsoha
y
Kha uloo
KoKilomsa
Kwnilwa
i doa
MManLmi ba
as ynda
M aioni
Mastz i
Masasa
MMorMbewai
pwo buya
N agporlu
Sh Njeowawoa
ml
i
U nUyaRubae
sa l n fi
H mangaji
a
D TKignbdagra
ar u o e a
es Tnd mni
s
R aal nurau
Buunagaga
m
SiIrkiowbe
nn a
M Ugigda
DikinPfaipaa
Mod dare
Twaaonmni
b za
MSoMnooraa
us gsh
omeai
a
0
-5
5
0
5
10
Percentage
10
15
Bo
m
Ke bali
ne
m
K a
Ko are
in ne
ad
ug
Bo u
nt
he
Ko
n
Pu o
je
Ka hun
ila
h
To un
nk
Sh olili
er
Po bro
rtl
M ok
oy o
am
ba
Fr B
ee o
to
w
n
Bo
n
Ke the
Ko n e
in ma
ad
u
Sh gu
er
Bo bro
m
b
Ka ali
re
ne
K
To ono
nk
Pu olil
je i
Ka hun
ila
Po hun
r
M tlok
oy o
am
ba
Fr B
ee o
to
w
n
0
-10
5
0
10
15
10
20
Percentage
20
25
Figure 11: Minister year shares by district in British colonies II (1960-1971)
Sierra Leone
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Tanzania
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Uganda
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
Zambia
minister-years share
minister-years share - population share
ze Lab
re e
ko
Ki
ss P re
id it
ou a
g
G Ma ou
ue m
ck ou
ed
Ko B ou
u o
Fo rou ke
re ss
ca a
ria
Be h
K yla
Ko ind
u ia
M mb
ac ia
C ent
on a
ak
Bo ry
Si ffa
Ka guir
n i
D kan
ab
ol
a
47
N
G
u B
Ki eck ok
ss e e
id d
N ou ou
z g
Ko ere ou
u ko
Fo rou re
re ss
c a
Ko ari
um ah
bi
a
P
Ki ita
nd
B ia
M eyla
am
ou
C Bof
on fa
M ak
ac ry
e
Si nta
Ka gui
nk ri
a
La n
D be
ab
ol
a
0
-10
5
0
10
15
10
20
Percentage
20
25
ng
O M
Bo di an
nd enn
ou e
k
Sa D ou
ss alo
a
N n a
zi d
co ra
Ba mo
s e
Se sa
gu m
Ta G ela
go uig
ua lo
In nas
d
Ag eni
ne e
Ta by
G bou
ou
La ros
As hou
s
B inie
La aou
gu le
ne
s
Ko
Bo Bas
nd sa
ou m
G kou
u
In igl
o
O den
di ie
en
D ne
a
Sa Agn loa
ss eb
an y
Ta T dra
go ab
u ou
Se ana
gu s
e
Ko la
N Mng
zi a
co n
As moe
s
G ini
ou e
La ros
B ho
La aou u
gu le
ne
s
0
-10
0
10
20
20
Percentage
10
30
30
minister-years share
minister-years share
la
s
ou
di
y
so
u
go
ou
ud
Ko
bo
Bo
ou
Sa
ug
da
Fa
do
ga
ua
O
a
ya
Ka
uy
u
ua
go
go
hi
ou
ed
ua
D
o
og
ao
i
or
0
10
5
15
Percentage
10
20
minister-years share
O
D
od
-5
5
oy
e
ey
on
o
At
ac
M
o
r
oy
a
en
ni
ge
r
Al
la
da
D
jo
ug
o
Sa u
va
lo
u
C
ot
on
ou
O
ui
da
Po
h
rto
no
vo
Bo
rg
ou
M
Ab
om
nn
ig
D er
jo
ug
ou
M
on
o
Al
la
da
At
ac
o
Sa ra
va
lo
u
C
ot
on
ou
O
ui
da
Ab h
om
e
Bo y
rg
Po
o
rto u
no
vo
M
0
-10
-5
0
20
5
Percentage
10
10
30
minister-years share
G
nk
Te
D
or
G i
a
ou
Te
a
nk
od
og
o
Fa
da
Ka
ya
O
S
ua
ay
hi
go
uy
D
a
ed
O
ua oug
ou
ga
do
Ko ugo
u
ud
Bo
o
bo ug
ou
di
ou
la
ss
o
0
Figure 12: Minister year shares by district in French colonies I (1960-1971)
Benin
minister-years share - population share
Burkina Faso
minister-years share - population share
Cote d'Ivoire
minister-years share - population share
Guinea
minister-years share - population share
D
ag
48
Ti
B
va ao
ou l
an
e
Si Ma
ne tam
sa
lo
u
D m
ag
an
a
H
au Po
te do
ga r
m
bi
e
Ba
ke
Ta
m Lo l
ba ug
a
c
C ou
as nd
am a
an
ce
D
ak
a
T r
Sa hie
in s
tlo
ui
s
te
a
ga na
m
b
M ie
at
am
Ti Ba
va ke
ou l
an
Ta
m Po e
ba d
co or
un
da
Ba
Lo ol
ug
Si Da a
ne k
a
C sal r
as ou
am m
an
ce
T
Sa hie
in s
tlo
ui
s
au
H
0
-10
0
10
20
20
Percentage
10
30
30
minister-years share
N
ey
ia
m
re
ua
a
ez
G
ou
ao
ss
Te
ad
os
so
Bi
lm
Ag
D
er
Zi
nd
i
ua
0
10
30
20
40
30
50
minister-years share
ig
m
-10
20
Percentage
ra
r
Ad
za
Tr
ar
l
r
rie
na
or
go
G
ev
ul
ie
d
Ba
nt
ga
Br
ak
a
ba
sa
Ta
As
ak
m
ui
di
G
za
Tr
ar
na
ra
r
Br
ak
Ad
l
ba
sa
nt
or
go
G
As
r
a
vr
ie
ga
Ta
ak
m
le
du
ie
Ba
ui
di
G
0
-5
0
5
20
Percentage
10
10
30
minister-years share
gu
ho
ny
-20
10
N
K em
Bo out a
ug iala
ou
N ni
i
Ba Noro
Ba fo ar
u
nd la a
ia be
ga
ra
M Sa
ac n
G Gina
ou a
n
G da o
o m
Sa urm
K
ta a a
d o ye
s
Si ugo
N kas u
ia s
fu o
n
M ke
Se opt
To
go i
m
u
bo Ki
t
u
Ba ctoa
m u
ak
o
Ba
f
Booul
ug abe
ou
n
G G i
ou ao
Ko rm
ut a
ia
l
Sa N a a
ta N ra
do ior
ug o
G Ma ou
ou ci
nd na
am
Ba K Sa
nd ay n
N iag es
ia ar
fu a
nk
Ke
N ita
em
M
Si opa
To kas ti
m Se so
bo go
Bauct u
m ou
ak
o
0
-10
10
0
10
20
20
30
Percentage
30
40
minister-years share
N
Ta
Ko
n
ad
ez
Bi
lm
a
Ko
nn
y
N
gu
ig
m
Ta i
ho
ua
G
ou
re
D
os
so
Te
ss
ao
ua
Zi
nd
er
N
ia
m
ey
Ag
0
Figure 13: Minister year shares by district in French colonies II (1960-1971)
Mali
minister-years share - population share
Mauritania
minister-years share - population share
Niger
minister-years share - population share
Senegal
minister-years share - population share
B
Historical materials
This section provides images of the historical materials referenced in the main text. I start by
listing the independence years of the 16 countries in the sample. In bold, countries with coups
d’etat—all taking place between 1965 and 1970—that led to a regime change:
1957 Guinea
1958 Ghana
1960 Senegal, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Mauritania
1961 Sierra Leone, Tanzania
1962 Uganda
1963 Kenya
1964 Malawi, Zambia
Figure 14: Senegalese Assembly
49
Figure 15: Government of Ghana, 1960
Figure 16: Biography of Nkrumah
---------
Nkrt1111al1, Fra11cis Nwia Ko.fie
(Kwan1e)
GHANA-(THE CONSTITUTION, THE GOVERNMENT)
THE CONSTITUTION
Prcside11t of Gl1a11a.
Dor11 in Septen1ber 1909 at Nkroful in
tl1c W ester11 Province of Gl1a11a (tl1e11
k11ow11 as tl1c Gold Coast), 11ear tl1e Ivory
Coast border, a 111en1ber of tl1c Nzi111a
tribe a11d tl1c so11 of a goldsn1itl1, l1e was
educated at Catl1olic 111issio11 scl1ools a11d
tl1e11 beca1nc a pupil tcacl1cr. 111 1926 he
\Vc11t to the Govcrn111cntTrainit1g College
ii1 Accra (later i11corporated into Acl1in1ota College), \vl1crc he took a tcacl1i11g
diplon1a, a11d tl1e11 taugl1t at a variety of
schools u11til i11 193 s an u11cle l1clpcd to
pay llis passage to the U11ited States. In
1939 lie graduated fro111 Li11coh1 U1tlvcrsity witl1 a 111ajor in Econo111ics at1d
Sociology, stayi11g on to study Theology.
Having obtained post-graduate degrees
in Educatio11 a11d Pl1tlosopl1y fro111 tl1e
U11iversity of Pe11nsylva11ia, he was
appoi11ted Lecturer in I>olitical Scie11ce at
Li11coh1 U1tlversity a11d, \vhile there, was
elected Preside11t of tl1e Africa11 Students
Presidential Elections
The draft Constitution for the Republic of Ghana was
presented to the National Assembly in March 1960,
accepted by plebiscite in April, and will come into force on
I July 1960.
The main provision of the new Constitution are:
1. That Ghana should be a sovereign unitary Republic
with power to surrender any part of her sovereignty to a
Union of African States.
2. That the Head of State and holder of executive power
should be an elected President responsible to the people.
3. That Parliament should be the Sovereign legislature
and should consist of the President and the National
Assembly, and that the President should have a power to
veto legislation and to dissolve Parliament.
4. That a President should be elected whenever there is
a general election by a method which insures that he will
normally be the leader of the party which is successful in
the General Election.
5. That there should be a Cabinet appointed by the
President from among Members of Parliament to assist the
President in the exercise of his executive functions.
6 . That the system of Courts and the security of tenure
·of Judges should continue on present lines.
7. That the control of the armed forces and the civil
service should be vested in the President.
The first President will be named in the Constitution, and
will be elected by the people at the same time as they vote
in the plebiscite.
The President's term of office will be identical with that
of the National Assembly, unless he dies or resigns, when
a new President will be elected by the National Assembly
for the remainder of its term of office.
The President will be eligible for re-election.
The election of subsequent Presidents is the subject of a
Presidential Elections Bill, to be introduced after the
establishment of the Republic. Should any candidate
obtain the support of half the Members of the National
Assembly he is automatically declared President. :' Should
there be no candidate with a clear majority, the election is
entrusted to the National Assembly, voting by secret
ballot. Failing agreement after five ballots the National
Assembly is automatically dissolved and another General
Election is held.
Tiie Cabinet
The Cabinet shall consist of at least eight Ministers.
The National Assembly
The normal life of the National Assembly shall be five
years, after which there shall be a General Electio!lrElection is by universal adult suffrage.
THE GOVERNMENT
President: Dr. KwAME NKRUMAH (from J uly 1st, 1960).
DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES
CABINET
Head of State: Dr. KWAME NKRUMAH (from July Jst, 1960).
Minister ot Finance: K. A. GBEDEMAH.
Minister or Economic Attain: KOJO BoTSIO.
Minister of Health and Social Welfare: c. T. NYLANDER.
Minister of Local aovemment: A. E. A. OFoRI-ATTA.
Minister or Fonlgn A train: AKO ADJEI.
Minister or the Interior: A. E. INKSUMAH.
Minister or Transport and Communications: KRoBo
(A) Ambassador; (H.C.) High Commissioner.
Ethiopia: M. A. RIBERIO, Addis Ababa (A).
France: J. E. JANTUAH, Paris (A).
aerman Federal Republic: T. o. AsARE, Bonn (A).
Bulnea: Hon . J. H. ALLASSANI, (Ghana Minister for
Guinea Affairs).
India: NANA KwABENA KENA II, New Delhi, (H.C.).
Israel: BEDIAKO POKU, Tel Aviv (A).
Japan: W. BAIDOE-ANsAH, Tokyo (A).
Liberia: CoBINA KEssrn, Monrovia (A).
Nl1erla: V. M. C. TAY, Lagos (H.C.).
Sudan: C. S. DEY, Khartoum (A).
Tunisia: JOHNATHAN E. BossMAN, Tunis (A).
U.S.S.R.: JOHN BANKS ELLIOT, Moscow (A).
United Arab Republic: J.B. ERzuAH, Cairo (A).
United Kln1dom: E . c. AsAFU-ADJAYE, London (H.C.).
United States: w. Q. M. HALM, Washington (A).
Yu1oslavla: SIMON WELLINGTON KUMAH, Belgrade (A).
United Nations (New York): A. c. QuAYsoN-SACKEY,
EDUSEI.
Minister of Education and Information, Director, Bureau
of African AHain: KOFI BAAKo.
Minister of Health: IMoRu EGALA.
Minister of Works and Housing: E. K. BENSAH.
Minister of Food and Agriculture: F. Y . AsARE.
Minister or Trade: P. K. K. QuArnoo.
Minister of State (Guinea A train): J. H. ALu.ssANI.
Minister of State: N. A . WELBEcx. •
Minister ot State for Defence: C. T . NYLANDER .
REGIONAL COMMISSIONERS
L. R. ABAVANA (Northem Region).
R. 0 . AMUKO-ATTA (Ashanti).
F. D . K. GoKA (Volta Region).
c. DE GRAFT DICKSON (Special Duties) .
J.E. HAGAN (Western Region).
H. T. KoRBOE (Eastern Region).
S. W . YEBOAH (Brong-Ahafo Region) .
Orgattlzation of0 America and Canada. ·
Coming across the works of Marcus
Garvey, he beca1ne fired with the idea of
Pan-Africattlsm. InJune 1945 he went to
London to read Law and write a thesis. ·
Becoming Vice-President of the West ·
African Students Union, he worked i
closely witl1 George Pad1nore and in ·
October was one of the joint Secretaries '.
of the 5tli Pan-African Conference at ,
New York.
United Nations (Geneva): H. R. AMoNoo, Geneva.
Embassies are to be set up in Brazil, Poland and Cuba.
527
190
50
Figure 17: Pages of a Blue Book page for Uganda, 1945 (left) and of a Compte Définif for Benin,
1928 (right)
COMPTE
3
S
S
Pu
<i
X
o
W
J
u
H
pi
<;
S
O
«J
S
<;
pq
<
NATURE
'
DEPENSES
DES
8
9
Entretien
Entretien
Entretien
OBSERVATIONS
dépenses
de Cotonou.
des routes
et ponts
des marchés
et caravansérails
des
immeubles,
gîtes
d'étapes
;
:
et
puits
10.700
3.000
»
»
1.250
»
10.565
2.717
Totaux.
2
2
50
»
13 634
02
3 084
»
2 084
»
3.084
»
2.084
»
dépenses
imprévues.
d'aviation
champ
Godomey
—
Aménagement
Kadjèhoun
entre
2
1
Construction
cercles
de
et
ponts
de
routes
dans
25.200
»
24.773
50
25.200
»
24.773
50
37.000
»
19.608
1.000
»
Entretien
des routes.
ie la toiture
Réparation
du marché de cotonou et uadigconnage.
do l'école de fiodomey,
Réparation
des
murs et badigeonnage.
crépissage
et
Totaux
20
.
14.950
Autres
d'un
70
82
350
,
17
xxxm
FAITES
des
a.
17
1928
DEPENSES
par
AUTORISATION
'
Cercle
II
DÉFINITIF
CRÉDITS
d'un
Aménagement
tion entre Kadjèhoun
champ d'aviaet (iodomey.
Grosses réparations
Cotonou.
a la route
les
,
Totaux
de
Cercle de Djougou
III
7
Entretien
des routes
8
Entretien
des
10
H
Entretien
des cimetières
et transformation
Réparations
indigènes
mai
et ponts
chés
et caravansérails.
des
3
Construction
fonctionnaires
38.350
de bâtiments
pour
logement
2
l
Construction
de pnnts
et routes
Entretien
courant des bâtiments du
marché
et <lu caravansérail.
Réfection de toiture.
200
»
Travaux d'entretien
nerie et toitures.
nouvelles.'
»
20.428
»
3
Travaux
divers
aux
rpostes
divers,
maçon-
»
4.000
»
610
»
4 000
»
010
»
32.000
»
16.148
»
32.000
»
16.148
»
,
Totaux
6
des
de
Totaux
20
»
»
Travaux
courants
d'entretien
routes
Djougou-Sèméré-DjougouOnklou
sur tout leur parcourt).
»
Tribunaux
Totaux
2
125
225
~
»
020
médicaux...
Totaux
5 000
»
4.180
»
5.000
»
4.180
»
k\ 000
-il.UUU
»
49
i».o/u
876
»
»
4.697
Construction
d'un
de 3
pavillon
pièces avec vôrandah, toiture chaume.
Construction
gou a N'Dali.
construction
, Djougou.
de la route
d'un
de Djou-
dispensaire
a
Cercle du Borgou.
11
1
7/
PntrptiPii
entretien
HP« roiue»
rontP<
aes
8
Entretien
des
9
Entretien
puits
. *
10
1U
,,
11
marchés
des
..
et caravansérails
immeubles,
gîtes
.
Fntfpripn
HPS Cimctieies
pimptipr'PS
entretien
aes
„ ,
.
.
.
.
et transformation
Réparation
.f..
,„
indigènes
„
t
et
»
250
~ou
»
235
~o<;
»
ocn
3oO
„.
»
-JKO
dou
»
m •
i.
des Tribunaux
.
Entretien et amélioration
desroules
,iu cercle. Remise en état de la route
Nikki. Kallé, route Guessou, Senendé.
Construction
d'un pont sur rivière
Kala, réfection des ponts du cercle.
1-009»
1.000».
d'étapes
4 ' 750
1V,
51
Pt nnntt;
et
ponts
"^
decgKcu^^en8e^ffr
tion des toits des caravansérails
des
subdivisions.
lîntretiendes
immeubles
du cercle
et creusement
des puits du poste.
Construction
d'un gîte d'étapes â
Bori.
et blanchiement
des
Crépissage
tombes, réfection
du mur
d'entouraSe
~ â Bem béréké.
.
..
.
,
,.
Transformation
du m
Tribunal , de
Parakou.
Réfection
aménatoiture,
salle d'audiences.
Crépissage
fement
es murs.
Figure 18: Colonial map of Nigeria (1948)
Figure 19: Colonial map of French West Africa (1954)
52