What explains differential rates of ethnic violence in postcolonial Africa? I argue that ethnic groups organized as a precolonial state (PCS) exacerbated interethnic tensions in their postcolonial country. Insecure leaders in these countries traded off between inclusive coalitions that risked insider coups and excluding other ethnic groups at the possible expense of outsider rebellions. My main hypotheses posit that PCS groups should associate with coups because their historically rooted advantages often enabled accessing power at the center, whereas other ethnic groups in their countries—given strategic incentives for ethnopolitical exclusion—should fight civil wars more frequently than ethnic groups in countries without a PCS group. Analyzing originally compiled data on precolonial African states provides statistical evidence for these implications about civil wars and coups between independence and 2013 across various model specifications. Strikingly, through 1989, thirty of thirty-two ethnic group-level major civil war onsets occurred in countries with a PCS group.

中文翻译：

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非洲的种族暴力：前殖民国家的破坏性遗产

什么解释了后殖民非洲种族暴力的不同比率？我认为，作为前殖民国家 (PCS) 组织的族群加剧了他们后殖民国家的种族间紧张局势。这些国家缺乏安全感的领导人在包容性联盟之间进行权衡，后者冒着内部政变的风险，而排除其他族群则可能以外部叛乱为代价。我的主要假设是，PCS 群体应该与政变联系起来，因为他们的历史根深蒂固的优势往往能够获得中央权力，而他们国家的其他族裔群体——考虑到种族政治排斥的战略激励——应该比国家的族裔群体更频繁地进行内战没有 PCS 组。分析最初汇编的关于前殖民时期非洲国家的数据，为这些关于独立和 2013 年之间的内战和政变的影响提供了统计证据，这些影响涵盖了各种模型规范。引人注目的是，到 1989 年，32 个族裔群体级别的重大内战爆发中有 30 个发生在拥有 PCS 群体的国家。