This article identifies indirect and direct colonial rule as causal factors in shaping support for democracy by exploiting a within-country natural experiment in Namibia. Throughout the colonial era, northern Namibia was indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous traditional elites whereas colonial authorities directly ruled southern Namibia. This variation originally stems from where the progressive extension of direct German control was stopped after a rinderpest epidemic in the 1890s, and, thus, constitutes plausibly exogenous within-country variation in the form of colonial rule. Using this spatial discontinuity, we find that individuals in indirectly ruled areas are less likely to support democracy and turnout at elections. We explore potential mechanisms and find suggestive evidence that the greater influence of traditional leaders in indirectly ruled areas has socialized individuals to accept nonelectoral bases of political authority.
AcemogluD.JohnsonS.RobinsonJ. A. (2002). Reversal of fortune: Geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 1231-1294.
2.
AcemogluD.ReedT.RobinsonJ. A. (2014). Chiefs: Economic development and elite control of civil society in Sierra Leone. Journal of Political Economy, 122, 319-368.
3.
Administrator of South West Africa. (1916). Annual report. Windhoek, Namibia: Author.
4.
Afrobarometer. (1999, 2003, 2005, 2008). Afrobarometer data Namibia, Rounds, 1-4. Available from http://www.afrobarometer.org
5.
AitkenR. (2007). Exclusion and inclusion: Gradations of whiteness and socio-economic engineering in German Southwest Africa, 1884-1914. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang.
6.
AlmondG. A.VerbaS. (1963). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
AngristJ. D.PischkeJ.-S. (2008). Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist’s companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8.
BaldwinK. (2014). When politicians cede control of resources: Land, chiefs, and coalition-building in Africa. Comparative Politics, 46, 253-271.
9.
BaldwinK. (2015). The paradox of traditional chiefs in democratic Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
10.
BaldwinK.MvukiyeheE. (2015). Elections and collective action: Evidence from changes in traditional institutions in Liberia. World Politics, 67, 690-725.
11.
BennettT. (1998). The constitutional base of traditional rulers in South Africa. In d’Engelbronner KolF.HinzM.SindanoJ. (Eds.), Proceedings from the workshop: Traditional authorities in the nineties -democratic aspects of traditional government in southern Africa (pp. 14-30). Windhoek: Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Namibia.
12.
BrattonM. (2004). The “alternation effect” in Africa. Journal of Democracy, 15, 147-158.
13.
BrattonM.MattesR. B.Gyimah-BoadiE. (2005). Public opinion, democracy, and market reform in Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
14.
de AquinoJ. A. (2015). The effect of exposure to political institutions and economic events on demand for democracy in Africa (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 160). Lansing: Michigan State University.
15.
de KadtD. (2017). Voting then, voting now: The long term consequences of participation in South Africa’s first democratic election. The Journal of Politics, 79(2), 670-687.
16.
de KadtD.LarreguyH. (in press). Agents of the regime? Traditional leaders and electoral politics in South Africa. The Journal of Politics.
17.
DellM. (2010). The persistent effects of Peru’s mining mita. Econometrica, 78, 1863-1903.
18.
Deutsche Kolonialzeitung. (1901). Der zug nach dem Nordbezirk von Deutsch-Südwestafrika [German colonial newspaper] (Annual report of the Northern District). Windhoek, Namibia: Deutscher Kolonialverein.
19.
DevereuxS. (1996). Fuzzy entitlements and common property resources: Struggles over rights to communal land in Namibia (Institute of Development Studies Working Paper No. 44). Falmer, UK: University of Sussex.
20.
DieckmannU. (2007). Haikom in the Etosha region: A history of colonial settlement, ethnicity and nature conservation. Basel, Switzerland: Basler Afrika Bibliographien.
21.
Directorate of Veterinary Services. (1996). The veterinary cordon fence: Past, present and future. Windhoek: Republic of Namibia.
22.
DüsingS. (2002). Traditional leadership and democratisation in Southern Africa: A comparative study of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Hamburg, Germany: Lit Verlag.
23.
EcklA. (2007). Reports from “beyond the line”: The accumulation of knowledge of Kavango and its peoples by the German colonial administration 1891-1911. Journal of Namibian Studies: History Politics Culture, 1, 7-37.
24.
ElischerS. (2013). Political parties in Africa: Ethnicity and party formation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
25.
EnglebertP. (2000). State legitimacy and development in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
26.
FriedmanJ. T. (2005). Making politics, making history: Chiefship and the post-Apartheid state in Namibia. Journal of Southern African Studies, 31, 23-51.
27.
Fuchs-SchündelnN.SchündelnM. (2015). On the endogeneity of political preferences: Evidence from individual experience with democracy. Science, 347, 1145-1148.
28.
GelmanA.ImbensG. W. (2014). Why high-order polynomials should not be used in regression discontinuity designs (NBER Working Paper No. 20405). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
29.
German Colonial Office. (1919). The treatment of native and other populations in the colonial possessions of Germany and England: An answer to the English blue book of August 1918: “Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany.” Berlin, Germany: H.R. Engelmann.
30.
GerringJ.ZiblattD.GorpJ. V.ArévaloJ. (2011). An institutional theory of direct and indirect rule. World Politics, 63, 377-433.
31.
GewaldJ.-B. (2003). Near death in the streets of Karibib: Famine, migrant labour and the coming of Ovambo to central Namibia. The Journal of African History, 44, 211-239.
32.
HaririJ. G. (2012). The autocratic legacy of early statehood. American Political Science Review, 106, 471-494.
33.
HerbsteinD.EvensonJ. (1989). The devils are among us: The war for Namibia. London, England: Zed Books.
34.
InglehartR.WelzelC. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
35.
IyerL. (2010). Direct versus indirect colonial rule in India: Long-term consequences. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92, 693-713.
36.
JansenJ. D. (1995). Understanding social transition through the lens of curriculum policy: Namibia/South Africa. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 27, 245-261.
37.
KatjaviviP. H. (1988). A history of resistance in Namibia. Paris, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
38.
KeulderC. (2000). Traditional leaders. In KeulderC. (Ed.), State, society and democracy: A reader in Namibian politics (pp. 150-170). Windhoek, Namibia: Gamsberg Macmillan.
39.
LangeM. (2004). British colonial legacies and political development. World Development, 32905-922.
40.
LangeM. (2009). Lineages of despotism and development: British colonialism and state power. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
41.
LeeD. S.LemieuxT. (2010). Regression discontinuity designs in economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 48, 281-355.
42.
LoganC. (2008). Traditional leaders in modern Africa: Can democracy and the chief co-exist? (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 93). Lansing: Michigan State University.
43.
LoganC. (2009). Selected chiefs, elected councilors, and hybrid democrats: Popular perspectives on the co-existence of democracy and traditional authority. Journal of Modern African Studies, 47, 101-128.
44.
LuthuliA. J. (1962). Africa and freedom. Africa Today, 9(1), 7-9.
45.
MamdaniM. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
46.
MattesR.BrattonM.DavidsY. D. (2003). Poverty, survival and democracy in southern Africa (Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 23). Lansing: Michigan State University
47.
MboyaT. (1956). The Kenya question: An African answer. London, England: Fabian Colonial Bureau.
48.
MelberH. (1996). Urbanisation and internal migration: Regional dimensions in post-colonial Namibia. Windhoek: Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit.
49.
MelberH. (2015). Understanding Namibia: The trials of independence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
50.
MendelsohnJ. (2002). Atlas of Namibia: A portrait of the land and its people. Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip.
MichalopoulosS.PapaioannouE. (2015). On the ethnic origins of African development: Traditional chiefs and pre-colonial political centralization. Academy of Management Perspectives, 29, 32-71.
53.
MiescherG. (2012). Namibia’s Red Line: The history of a veterinary and settlement border. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
54.
MiguelE. (2004). Tribe or nation? Nation building and public goods in Kenya versus Tanzania. World Politics, 56, 328-362.
55.
MoorsomR. (1977). Underdevelopment, contract labour and worker consciousness in Namibia, 1915-72. Journal of Southern African Studies, 4, 52-87.
56.
MoserJ. (2007). Untersuchungen zur Kartographiegeschichte von Namibia. Die Entwicklung des Karten-und Vermessungswesens von den Anfangen bis zur Unabhangigkeit 1990 [Inquiries into cartographic history of Namibia. The evolution of mapping and surveying from the beginning until independence] (Doctoral thesis). University of Dresden, Germany.
57.
MurdockG. P. (1967). Ethnographic atlas: A summary. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
58.
Namibia Statistics Agency. (2011). Namibia 2011: Population and housing census main report. Windhoek: Author.
59.
NewburyC. (1988). The cohesion of oppression: Clientship and ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860-1960. Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press.
60.
NtsebezaL. (2005). Democracy compromised: Chiefs and the politics of the land in South Africa. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
61.
OdendaalC. (1964). Report of the commission of enquiry into South West Africa affairs, 1962-1963. Pretoria: Republic of South Africa.
62.
OfcanskyT. P. (1981). The 1889-1897 rinderpest epidemic and the rise of British and German colonialism in eastern and southern Africa. Journal of African Studies, 8, 31-38.
63.
PerssonT.TabelliniG. (2009). Democratic capital: The nexus of political and economic change. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1, 88-126.
64.
PhoofoloP. (1993). Epidemics and revolutions: The rinderpest epidemic in late nineteenth-century southern Africa. Past & Present, 138, 112-143.
65.
PutnamR. D. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
66.
RadeletS. C. (2010). Emerging Africa: How 17 countries are leading the way. Washington DC: Center for Global Development.
67.
RizzoL. (2009). Gender and colonialism in Kaoko (northwestern Namibia) between the 1870s and 1940s (Doctoral thesis). University of Basel, Switzerland.
68.
RobertsB.StruwigJ.GordonS. (2014). IEC voter participation survey 2013/14. Pretoria, South Africa: Human Sciences Research Council.
69.
UdoguE. I. (2011). Liberating Namibia: The long diplomatic struggle between the United Nations and South Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
70.
WatersA. J. (1918). Martial law in the protectorate of South West Africa during military occupation by the forces of the Union of South Africa (as in force on the 1st July 1918). Swakopmund, Namibia: Swakopmund Buchhandlung.
71.
WernerW. (2003, May). Land reform in Namibia: Motor or obstacle of democratic development. Paper presented at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Berlin. Retrieved from http://www.theeis.com/data/literature/Land
72.
WernerW. (2007). A brief history of land dispossession in Namibia. Journal of Southern African Studies, 19, 135-146.
73.
WernerW.OdendaalW. (2010). Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report. Windhoek, Namibia: Legal Assistance Centre.
74.
WilliamsJ. M. (2004). Leading from behind: Democratic consolidation and the chieftaincy in South Africa. Journal of Modern African Studies, 42, 113-136.
75.
WilliamsJ. M. (2010). Chieftaincy, the state and democracy: Political legitimacy in post-Apartheid South Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
76.
WolputteS. V. (2007). Cattle works: Livestock policy, Apartheid and development in northwest Namibia, c 1920–1980. African Studies, 66, 103-128.
77.
ZimmererJ. (2001). Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner. Staatlicher Machtanspruch und Wirklichkeit im kolonialen Namibia [German rule over Africans. Governmental power claims and reality in colonial Namibia]. Munich, Germany: LIT Verlag.
78.
LoganC. (2013). The roots of resilience: Exploring popular support for African traditional authorities. African Affairs, 112, 353-376.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
