Three Essays in African Politics

This dissertation advances scholarship on identity politics in sub-Saharan Africa by showing how characteristics of ethnic groups interact with historical events to produce new identities, beliefs and behaviors. Comparisons are centered either on political hierarchy; relative size of ethnic groups; and political, economic, and geographic dimensions with relevant decisions made by pre-colonial and post-colonial African political rulers as they select the extent to which they may use religion to justify their political rule; the extent to which they may favor co-ethnics in cabinets; and the extent to which they take appropriate actions or implement appropriate policies as it relates to cooperation and competition with neighboring countries. The first substantive chapter titled, Gods and Kings: Pre-Colonial Political Centralization and Missionaries\u27 Long-Run Effect on Contemporary Religious Beliefs in Africa, shows that modern-day religiosity and syncretism among Africans is a function of pre-colonial political hierarchy and exposure to Christian missionaries in the pre-colonial and colonial period. Specifically, pre-colonial African rulers and local elites acted as intermediaries between Christian missionaries and the people such that local elites and the political ruler would often demand that Christian ideas be mapped onto existing African traditional religious beliefs. This translation mechanism helps explain why descendants of these same pre-colonial Africans from political centralized ethnic groups would today both practice Christianity and}African traditional beliefs--- syncretism. Moreover, pre-colonial Africans who lived in less acephalous communities will have been more exposed to and encouraged to worship a supreme being, because of their political ruler\u27s divine right to rule claim, which they used to legitimize their rule, facilitating later Christian and Islamic monotheism among the people. On the contrary, pre-colonial Africans from more acephalous communities would have no such ruling elites and political ruler to act as intermediaries with Christian missionaries but also would have been less likely to worship a supreme being both because of a lack of centralized political authority claiming divine right to rule and because of their smaller populations which were often subsistence farming communities, which are associated with worship of minor deities rather than a supreme being. In the second substantive chapter titled, Minority Presidents, Coups, Civil Wars and Patronage in Africa, I unpack the puzzle behind why we observe post-independent minority African leaders be more likely than plurality leaders to survive coups despite being equally likely to experience coups. In particular, I argue that in contexts of high ethnic diversity and where ethnicity is salient for organizing politics, minority leaders will be more constrained by their relatively small ethnic groups and will trade off increased likelihood of surviving coups for civil war risk through favoring their co-ethnics in cabinet appointments. However, because these cabinet positions are observable common knowledge among elites and the citizenry, we can expect the minority leader\u27s co-ethnic favoritism to be smaller in magnitude among the top cabinet positions of agriculture, finance, and defense relative to the full cabinet. The minority ruler favors co-ethnics across all cabinet positions as this increases information and support from within government that may be important in mobilizing support to survive coups. Empirical analyses provide suggestive evidence that indeed ethnic minority leaders face these constraints because we do observe them favoring their co-ethnics across all cabinet positions, but less so for the top cabinet positions. This chapter contributes to extensive literatures on coups and civil wars and how ethnic diversity matters for conflict, however, its particular novelty comes from its serious treatment of the ethnic minority status of post-independence African leaders to unpack how their governance may be different from plurality leaders to advance our understanding of the interplay between ethnicity and political survival. Third and finally, in the final substantive chapter titled, Understanding Preferences for Unification: Evidence From The East African Federation, I explore what determines political attitudes towards political unification with their East African neighboring countries of a highly ethnically diverse African country, Tanzania, whose politics has often been claimed in the political science literature as largely being devoid of ethnicity. I also show how legacies of political violence and propaganda during liberation movements toward democracy in southern Africa, which Tanzania was a significant actor in, and in one of the handful examples of inter-state war in Africa during the Kagera War between Tanzania and Uganda, activate different political attitudes despite both involving violent conflict. Taken together, the dissertation contributes to literatures across the social sciences including political science, economics, religious studies, among others as well like evolutionary psychology and anthropology

Bang for Your Buck: Pregnancy Risk as the Source of the Price Premium for Unprotected Sex

Sex workers receive a price premium for unprotected sex. Research has inferred that the source of this premium is a compensating differential for STI risk. I introduce a compensating differential for pregnancy risk as a novel source of this price premium through a simple model that predicts the price for unprotected sex increasing with the probability of pregnancy through decreased unprotected sex. I empirically test this using a rich panel dataset of 19,041 sexual transactions by 192 sex workers in Busia, Kenya collected during 2005 and 2006. I use the probability of pregnancy as an instrument for unprotected sex and run two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression and find that a compensating differential for pregnancy risk is a source of the price premium for unprotected sex. The price premium for pregnancy risk is as high as USD 122 or about 16 times average price. I also test for a compensating differential for STI risk and clients' disutility for condoms, the other competing theories, and find that a compensating differential for STI risk is also a source of the price premium for unprotected sex, however, I do not find evidence for clients' disutility for condoms as a source of the price premium for unprotected sex. Identifying and estimating sources of the price premium for unprotected sex will allow policymakers to implement interventions that will reduce both the supply and the demand for unprotected sex

Bang for Your Buck: Pregnancy Risk as the Source of the Price Premium for Unprotected Sex

Sex workers receive a price premium for unprotected sex. Research has inferred that the source of this premium is a compensating differential for STI risk. I introduce a compensating differential for pregnancy risk as a novel source through a simple model that predicts the price for unprotected sex increasing with the probability of pregnancy through decreased unprotected sex. I empirically test this using a rich panel dataset of 19,041 sexual transactions by 192 sex workers in Busia, Kenya collected during 2005 and 2006. I use the probability of pregnancy as an instrument for unprotected sex and run two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression and find that a compensating differential for pregnancy risk is the source of the price premium for unprotected sex. The price premium for pregnancy risk is as high as USD 122 or about 16 times average price. I also test for a compensating differential for STI risk and clients' disutility for condoms, the other competing theories, and find that they are not statistically significant sources of the premium. Identifying and estimating sources of the price premium for unprotected sex will allow policymakers to implement interventions that will reduce both the supply and the demand for unprotected sex

Bang for Your Buck: STI Risk and Pregnancy Risk as Sources of the Price Premium for Unprotected Sex

Sex workers receive a price premium for unprotected sex. Research has inferred that the source of this premium is a compensating differential for STI risk. I introduce a compensating differential for pregnancy risk as a novel source through a simple model that incorporates both STI risk and pregnancy risk. I empirically test this using a rich panel dataset of 19,041 sexual transactions by 192 sex workers in Busia, Kenya collected during 2005 and 2006. I run sex worker-fixed effects regressions and find that compensating differentials for STI risk and pregnancy risk are sources of the price premium for unprotected sex. The price premium for pregnancy risk is USD 10, and USD 2 for STI risk (24 percent of average price). I also test for clients' disutility for condoms, another competing theory, and find that it is not a statistically significant source of the premium. Identifying and estimating sources of the price premium for unprotected sex will allow policymakers to implement interventions that will reduce both the supply and the demand for unprotected sex

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

The global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors, 2010-19 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background Understanding the magnitude of cancer burden attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors is crucial for development of effective prevention and mitigation strategies. We analysed results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 to inform cancer control planning efforts globally. Methods The GBD 2019 comparative risk assessment framework was used to estimate cancer burden attributable to behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risk factors. A total of 82 risk-outcome pairs were included on the basis of the World Cancer Research Fund criteria. Estimated cancer deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) in 2019 and change in these measures between 2010 and 2019 are presented. Findings Globally, in 2019, the risk factors included in this analysis accounted for 4.45 million (95% uncertainty interval 4.01-4.94) deaths and 105 million (95.0-116) DALYs for both sexes combined, representing 44.4% (41.3-48.4) of all cancer deaths and 42.0% (39.1-45.6) of all DALYs. There were 2.88 million (2.60-3.18) risk-attributable cancer deaths in males (50.6% [47.8-54.1] of all male cancer deaths) and 1.58 million (1.36-1.84) risk-attributable cancer deaths in females (36.3% [32.5-41.3] of all female cancer deaths). The leading risk factors at the most detailed level globally for risk-attributable cancer deaths and DALYs in 2019 for both sexes combined were smoking, followed by alcohol use and high BMI. Risk-attributable cancer burden varied by world region and Socio-demographic Index (SDI), with smoking, unsafe sex, and alcohol use being the three leading risk factors for risk-attributable cancer DALYs in low SDI locations in 2019, whereas DALYs in high SDI locations mirrored the top three global risk factor rankings. From 2010 to 2019, global risk-attributable cancer deaths increased by 20.4% (12.6-28.4) and DALYs by 16.8% (8.8-25.0), with the greatest percentage increase in metabolic risks (34.7% [27.9-42.8] and 33.3% [25.8-42.0]). Interpretation The leading risk factors contributing to global cancer burden in 2019 were behavioural, whereas metabolic risk factors saw the largest increases between 2010 and 2019. Reducing exposure to these modifiable risk factors would decrease cancer mortality and DALY rates worldwide, and policies should be tailored appropriately to local cancer risk factor burden. Copyright (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.Peer reviewe

Replication Data for: 'Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania'

The data and programs replicate tables and figures from "Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania", by Mbiti, Muralidharan, Romero, Schipper, Manda, and Rajani. Please see the Readme file for additional details