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"Industrialization and Assimilation is among the first books to focus on the process of ethnic identity change in a broad context. Green's evidence causally explains how and why ethnicity changes across time, showing that, by altering the basis of economic production from land to labor and removing people from the "idiocy of rural life," industrialization is a powerful agent for making societies more ethnically homogenous. More specifically, the author argues that industrialization lowers the relative value of rural land, leading people to identify less with narrow rural identities in favor of broader identities that can aid them navigate the formal urban economy. Using case studies ranging from mid-20th century Turkey to contemporary Botswana, Somalia, and Uganda, as well as examples of Native Americans in the United States and the Māori in New Zealand, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to establish the relationship between industrialization and ethnic homogenization"--

Recent literature suggests that African Presidents tend to target co-ethnics with patronage, especially in non-democracies. Coupled with evidence on the role of incentives in driving ethnic identity change, I propose that a change in the ethnic identity of the President should lead to an increase in the proportion of people identifying with the President's ethnic group. I use survey data from fourteen African countries with Presidential transitions to show that ethnic Presidential change leads to an upwards shift in the percentage of respondents identifying with the new ruling ethnic group in non-democracies, and that this shift increases with the level of autocracy. I also show that countries where citizens perceive more ethnic favoritism see higher levels of ethnic switching. Within-survey evidence from Zambia demonstrates that this shift is immediate, and case study evidence from early modern China suggests that this phenomenon is not limited to Sub-Saharan Africa.

The process by which people transfer their allegiance from ethnic to national identities is highly topical yet somewhat opaque. This article argues that one of the key determinants of national identification is membership in a 'core' ethnic group, orStaatsvolk, and whether or not that group is in power. It uses the example of Uganda as well as Afrobarometer data to show that, when the core ethnic group is in power (as measured by the ethnic identity of the president), members of this group identify more with the nation, but when this group is out of power members identify more with their ethnic group. This finding has important implications for the study of nationalism, ethnicity and African politics.

Recent literature on ethnic favouritism suggests that Presidents tend to target co-ethnics with patronage, especially in non-democracies. Coupled with evidence on the role of incentives in driving ethnic identity change, I propose that a change in the ethnic identity of presidents in non-democracies should lead to ethnic switching among citizens towards the new ruling ethnic group. Using Demographic and Health Survey data from thirteen African countries, I show that change in the ethnic identity of the President leads to a shift of women identifying with the new ruling ethnic group of around 1.5% of the population in non-democracies, or on average 10% of the President's ethnic group. This relationship is robust to the use of a variety of control variables and different specifications as well as the use of qualitative case study evidence from Ghana and Guinea; I also suggest it may be an underestimate due to data limitations.

There has long been an emphasis on the importance of decentralization in providing better quality public services in the developing world. In order to assess the effectiveness of decentralization I examine here the case study of Uganda, which has seen major decentralization of power over the last quarter-century. Initial excitement about Uganda's decentralization programme has, however, tapered off in recent years due to a number of problems outlined here. I suggest that many of these problems are the consequence of broader problems of poor state capacity and institutions that are endemic in developing countries.

The consequences of ethnic diversity in Africa have been widely noted. However, the sources of this diversity remain unexplained, which is surprising in light of Africa's high level of ethnic diversity as well as its large internal variation. Here I show that ethnic diversity in Africa is a result of its tropical location, the pre-colonial slave trade, the colonial creation of large states, and low levels of urbanization, and that my results are robust to various controls. I also show that controlling for the slave trade eliminates the statistical significance of an Africa dummy variable in regressions using data on global ethnic diversity. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright, the International Political Science Association.]

The consequences of ethnic diversity in Africa have been widely noted. However, the sources of this diversity remain unexplained, which is surprising in light of Africa's high level of ethnic diversity as well as its large internal variation. Here I show that ethnic diversity in Africa is a result of its tropical location, the pre-colonial slave trade, the colonial creation of large states, and low levels of urbanization, and that my results are robust to various controls. I also show that controlling for the slave trade eliminates the statistical significance of an Africa dummy variable in regressions using data on global ethnic diversity.