Introduction to Volume III: “Strategic Bargaining”

Conclusion

10.1093/oso/9780190679934.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Douglas I. Thompson

Keyword(s):

Conflict Resolution ◽

Public Goods ◽

Moral Reasoning ◽

Public Reason ◽

Public Institutions ◽

Moral Reason ◽

Strategic Bargaining ◽

Canadian Army ◽

Actual Conflict

Montaigne offers what is perhaps the first historical instance of the now-ubiquitous phrase “public reason.” Whereas contemporary use of this phrase refers to activities of moral reason-giving, Montaigne uses it to refer to the health of public institutions, conventions, and activities that allow parties in potential and actual conflict to negotiate civil peace and other public goods, whether through moral reasoning, strategic bargaining, or other forms of interaction. This chapter engages with two recent instances of Montaignian public reason in action: the local negotiation of “civil alliance” between Jews and Arabs in the lands of the Palestinian Mandate in 1947–1948 and the negotiation of conflict resolution during an armed standoff between the Canadian army and Mohawk warriors outside Montréal, Quebec in the summer of 1990.

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Colonial Education, Political Elites, and Regional Political Inequality in Africa

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414021997176 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 001041402199717

Author(s):

Joan Ricart-Huguet

Keyword(s):

Political Elites ◽

Colonial Education ◽

Short Term ◽

Colonial Era ◽

Political Inequality ◽

Post Colonial ◽

Strategic Bargaining ◽

Recruitment Practices ◽

Colonial Legacies ◽

Home Region

Political elites tend to favor their home region when distributing resources. But what explains how political power is distributed across a country’s regions to begin with? Explanations of cabinet formation focus on short-term strategic bargaining and some emphasize that ministries are allocated equitably to minimize conflict. Using new data on the cabinet members (1960–2010) of 16 former British and French African colonies, I find that some regions have been systematically much more represented than others. Combining novel historical and geospatial records, I show that this regional political inequality derives not from colonial-era development in general but from colonial-era education in particular. I argue that post-colonial ministers are partly a byproduct of civil service recruitment practices among European administrators that focused on levels of literacy. Regional political inequality is an understudied pathway through which colonial legacies impact distributive politics and unequal development in Africa today. JEL: F54, I26, N37, N47

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