Civil Conflict and Ethnic Identity: A Disaggregated Level Study in Africa

Abstract

I show that contemporary civil conflict has detrimental effects on social capital in Africa. Using individual-level survey data on ethnic identity and group-level data on civil conflict, I find that ethnic identity is positively correlated with the incidence and the intensity of civil conflict, both of which are measured by the number of conflict fatalities. This positive relation is robust to a variety of empirical strategies, such as potential omitted variables bias and IV estimates. Furthermore, I also find evidence that the intensity of conflict fatalities is negatively correlated with political trust.