Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa

Ethnic diversity is generally associated with less social capital and lower levels of trust. However, most empirical evidence for this relationship is focused on generalized trust, rather than more theoretically appropriate measures of groupbased trust. This paper instead evaluates the relationship between ethnic diversity – at both national and local levels – and the degree to which coethnics are trusted more than non-coethnics, a value I call the “coethnic trust premium.” Using public opinion data from sixteen African countries, I find that ethnically diverse states have, on average, larger coethnic trust premiums. However, when evaluating this same relationship within countries, I find the seemingly contradictory pattern that local-level ethnic diversity is associated with greater interethnic trust. I then show, consistent with this finding, that diversity is only detrimental to intergroup trust in the presence of ethnic group segregation. I propose that this is because the elite-led politicization of ethnicity is less successful in ethnically diverse localities, where intergroup contact results in less prejudice and greater intergroup trust. ∗PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Stanford University. [email protected]. Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa 1 A growing literature has focused on how diverse contexts – neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries – influence social capital. This literature is motivated by the desire to understand global differences in social capital, as well as to predict the long-term consequences of increased diversity in many developed countries. Understanding how diversity impacts social capital – and interpersonal trust, in particular – is important, as low levels of social capital has been associated with poorer economic performance (Knack and Keefer, 1997; Zak and Knack, 2001), more prevalent corruption (Uslaner, 2008), and a reduced capacity for collective action (Levi, 1998). While the empirical literature within political science and economics has tended to document a negative association between ethnic diversity and social trust (Knack and Keefer, 1997; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002; Bahry et al., 2005), two different theoretical traditions within psychology and sociology make competing claims about what relationship we should expect to observe. Contact theory, most strongly associated with Gordon Allport, makes the optimistic prediction that diversity leads to interethnic tolerance and trust (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew, 1998). In contrast, conflict theory claims that intergroup contact will lead to an increase in conflict, as groups compete, or perceived themselves to be competing, over finite material resources (Blumer, 1958; Blalock, 1967; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). While most existing evidence is more consistent with conflict theory than contact theory, there has been a general mismatch between the construct of ethnocentric trust and the way in which it is typically measured. In particular, most studies of diversity and trust utilize the so-called “generalized trust” question, assuming – implicitly, if not explicitly – that the answer tells us something about trust across ethnic lines. In an attempt to remedy this inconsistency, I use more appropriate measures of ingroup and outgroup trust to explore the relationship between diversity and ethnocentric trust. I do so using public opinion data from sixteen African states, thus addressing a general theoretical question within a context where intergroup relations are central to the study of politics. I find that, consistent with conflict theory, ethnically diverse states have, on average, lower levels of interethnic trust. However, when evaluating this same relationship within countries, I find the seemingly contradictory pattern that local-level ethnic diversity and ethnic group integration is associated with greater interethnic trust. When both measures of diversity are included in the same multi-level model, their interaction suggests that the impact of national-level ethnic diversity on ethnocentric trust is moderated Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa 2 by district-level diversity: in particular, the level of diversity at the national level increases the size of the coethnic trust premium, but this impact is decreasing with local level diversity. This pattern implies that the adverse effects of national diversity on group-based trust are primarily driven by individuals living in relatively homogeneous districts. As a result, we would expect that a country’s diversity is only detrimental to trust when groups are segregated from one another into ethnically homogenous regions. Consistent with this expectation, cross-national correlations show that the negative effects of diversity on trust are strongest when the level of ethnic groups segregation is high. Taken together, these results suggest that diversity per se does not undermine interethnic trust, but diversity in combination with segregation is associated with greater coethnic trust premiums. I suggest that this pattern may be driven by the interaction between national-level politics, on the one hand, and local-level realities, on the other. In particular, the nature of national-level political competition in Africa often incentivizes political elites to “play the ethnic card,” resulting in ethnic-based prejudices and low interethnic trust. Because ethnic diversity increases the number of groups potentially vying for political and economic resources, such competition, and the accompanying ethnic-based appeals, increases with diversity – a pattern consistent with conflict theory. However, citizens’ susceptibility to the politicization of ethnic differences will depend on their own experiences with interethnic interactions. Among individuals living in locally diverse contexts, where interethnic contact is an everyday occurrence, such contact leads to less ethnic discrimination in general, and to greater interethnic trust, in particular. In other words, the central expectation of contact theory helps explain the local-level relationship between diversity and interethnic trust. These findings have important implications for understanding interethnic relations, as well as the policies we design to deal with ethnic conflict. First, the results demonstrate that the observed relationship between diversity and trust depends crucially on the level of analysis: while this fact has influenced the study of race relations in the United States (Oliver and Wong, 2003), it is not yet fully appreciated in the study of intergroup relations in Africa. In particular, these results suggest that the study of micro-level relations between members of different ethnic groups is unlikely to tell us very much about how macro-level ethnic diversity influences political and economic outcomes. Second, policy makers must consider the potential for policies to have differential effects at different levels of aggregation. For example, while proponents of conflict theory Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa 3 advocate for the separation of ethnic groups, both spatially and politically, as a means to reduce conflict (Lijphart, 1977), contact theory is regularly used to justify policies that promote ethnic and racial integration locally (Forbes, 2004). This study suggests, at a minimum, that appropriate policy solutions to ethnic conflict must appreciate the potentially countervailing effects of diversity at different levels of interaction. Ethnic Diversity and Ethnocentric Trust Several theories have been put forth to understand the ways in which exposure to ethnic and racial diversity shapes intergroup attitudes and behavior, including intergroup trust. First, conflict theory anticipates that individuals in diverse settings will compete for scarce resources along group lines, thereby increasing the salience and relevance of existing ethnic differences (Blumer, 1958; Bobo, 1983; Quillian, 1996; Bobo and Hutchings, 1996; Glaser, 2003). While not always drawing explicitly on conflict theory, scholars of African politics often explain ethnic antagonisms and distrust as the product of competition over resources within the ethnically diverse national context, either through the rational pursuit of material goods (Melson and Wolpe, 1970; Bates, 1983) or the social psychological response to group inequalities that result from such competition (Horowitz, 1985). In contrast, many psychologists have argued that exposure to diverse contexts should instead reduce the degree to which trust is ethnocentric. This expectation is predicated upon the assumption that negative beliefs about members of other groups are driven not by real or perceived competition, but by ignorance and lack of exposure to individuals from other groups. As a result, contact with non-coethnics is expected to ameliorate interethnic prejudice (Allport, 1954). According to Forbes (2004), the central tenant of contact theory is that “more contact between individuals belonging to antagonistic social groups (defined by culture, language, beliefs, skin color, nationality, etc.) tends to undermine the negative stereotypes they have of each other and to reduce theory mutual antipathies, thus improving intergroup relations by making people more willing to deal with each other as equals” (p.70). The mechanisms proposed to lead from intergroup contact to improved relations are learning, changing behavior, affective ties, and in-group reappraisal (Pettigrew, 1998). While this theory has influenced both the scholarship and policy on racial integration in the United States, it has been applied less often to intergroup relations in developing countries in general, or in African contexts Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa 4 in particular, where ethnic diversity is perceived to be especially problematic (Forbes, 2004; Kasara, 2013). A third possibility, proposed by Putnam (2007), is that exposure to diverse settings leads to less trust in general, by reducing trust not only in out-group members, but also in in-group members. Putnam calls this constrict theory and famously suggests that people who live in diverse areas “hunker down” (2007, p. 149). According to this theory, intergroup contact reduces social capital overall, but not necessarily through worsening intergroup relations or increased prejudices. Most empirical studies of the relationship between ethnic diversity and aggregate levels of trust find a robust negative relationship (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002; Delhey and Newton, 2005; Bjørnskov, 2007; Stolle et al., 2008; Putnam, 2007; Hooghe et al., 2009; Dincer, 2011), a pattern which is clearly inconsistent with the expectations of contact theory. However most of this work has focused on the correlation between measures of ethnic or racial diversity and average levels of generalized trust. The standard measure of generalized trust asks respondents whether they feel “most people can be trusted” or that “you can’t be too careful.” The use of this question has been heavily criticized for its lack of specificity on who “most people” refers to, or the context(s) in which this trust should apply, making the comparability of answers across individuals and societies potentially problematic (Nannestad, 2008). But more importantly for understanding diversity’s impact on trust, it’s a poor measure of the theoretically relevant construct – the degree to which trust is ethnically determined. Conflict theory expects that diversity will increase the size of the coethnic trust premium – the degree to which coethnics are trusted more than non-coethnics – by making individuals less trusting of non-coethnics. Constrict theory expects that diversity will drive down trust in both coethnics and noncoethnics, and would not expect the size of the coethnic trust premium to vary with diversity. However, both of these theories are consistent with the negative relationship between diversity and generalized trust. To distinguish these two theories, an ideal measure of trust would capture trust in coethnics separately from trust in non-coethnics. Fortunately, the third-round Afrobarometer public opinion survey includes separate questions on trust in coethnics and trust in non-coethnics, and was administered in sixteen African countries between 2005-2006: Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia (AfrobaromEthnic Diversity, Segregation, and Ethnocentric Trust in Africa 5 eter, 2006). Respondents were asked to rate their level of trust in different groups of people – not at all, just a little, somewhat, or a lot – including “people from your ethnic group” and “[Ghanaians/Kenyans/Malawians] from other ethnic groups.” Across the sixteen countries in this sample, the average trust in coethnics is 1.69 (sd = 0.99), which corresponds to a little over halfway between “just a little” and “somewhat.” Senegal has the highest level of ethnic group trust, on average, at 2.33, while Nigeria has the lowest at 1.31. The average trust in non-coethnics is lower, at 1.38 (sd = 0.99), corresponding to a little more than “just a little.” Senegal also has the highest level of trust in non-coethnics at 2.12 and Nigeria has the lowest at 1.04. These brief summary statistics suggest that cross-country differences in trust in general – with Senegal having high levels of trust and Nigeria having low levels of trust – may be masking interesting variation in the difference in trust in coethnics versus non-coethnics. Thus, perhaps more importantly than providing independent measures of coethnic trust and non-coethnic trust, these questions allow me to measure the degree to which individuals trust coethnics more than non-coethnics – the coethnic trust premium – by subtracting trust in non-coethnics from trust in coethnics. Given the four-point trust scale for each trust question, the coethnic trust premium can range from -3 (where non-coethnics are trusted “a lot” and coethnics are trusted “not at all”) to 3 (where coethnics are trusted “a lot” and non-coethnics are trusted “not at all.” The average coethnic trust premium across all sixteen country samples is 0.31 (sd = 0.79), with Mali having the highest premium (0.50) and Botswana the lowest (0.12). Another way to think about ethnocentric trust is to simply indicate whether or not a respondent trusts his or her coethnics more than non-coethnics, ignoring the magnitude of that difference. In this case, 27% of the sample exhibit ethnocentric trust, ranging from 37% in Uganda to 13% in Botswana. I use these measures of ethnic-based trust to evaluate the impact of ethnic diversity on ethnocentric trust.