Arnim Langer

Horizontal Inequalities: Explaining Persistence and Change

In many cases horizontal inequalities persist over long periods. For example, black/white differentials in the US, or indigenous/Ladino differentials in Latin America have been in existence for centuries. Other examples include the northern peoples in Ghana and blacks in South Africa. In contrast, some immigrant groups who were initially poor relative to the national average soon achieved above-average incomes. Where horizontal inequalities (HIs) persist they are particularly deleterious as they trap people, generation after generation, in a situation of deprivation. These conditions may also give rise to greater social instability. Consequently, this chapter is devoted to understanding the determinants of socioeconomic HIs over time, why they are so persistent in some cases but prove temporary in others.

Policies Towards Horizontal Inequalities

This book has argued that severe Horizontal Inequalities (HIs) predispose countries to violent conflict as well as reducing individuals’ well-being. Relevant HIs include socioeconomic, political and cultural status dimensions, and they are particularly damaging when they are consistent across dimensions. In the light of these findings, this chapter reviews policies towards reducing HIs.

Cultural Status Inequalities: An Important Dimension of Group Mobilization

Recent research on the causes of civil wars and communal, ethnic or religious conflicts has focused predominantly on political and economic grievances, motivations and issues (for example, Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; Fearon and Laitin, 2003; Nafziger and Auvinen, 2002; Stewart, 2000a). However, in many conflicts, political and economic issues are complemented by perceptions of cultural discrimination, exclusion or inequality of treatment. As Horowitz (2002: 22) asserts cultural matters, ‘such as the designation of official languages and official religions, and educational issues, such as languages of instruction, the content of curricula, and the official recognition of degrees from various educational streams associated with various ethnic or religious groups’, and freedom of cultural expression more generally, often play a central role in the emergence of violent conflicts.

Ethnicity, Religion and the State in Ghana and Nigeria: Perceptions from the Street

Objectively speaking, both Ghana and Nigeria are characterized by severe socioeconomic inequalities among their regions, ethnic groups and religions. Yet, as ultimately collective action depends on how social groups perceive the world in which they live and act, unravelling such perceptions must be a critical element in any investigation of group behaviour, including violent group mobilization. Consequently, this chapter presents and analyzes survey data, drawn from perceptions surveys conducted in Ghana and Nigeria, on how people see their own identities and their perceptions of the extent of domination of state institutions by particular ethnic or religious groups. The surveys consisted principally of a set of structured questionnaires in which respondents answered closed questions.1

Macro-Economic Policies in Post-Conflict Countries

What happens to the macro-economy is very important — not only for the level and growth of output and for employment but also for the evolution of horizontal inequalities (HIs). In many contexts it is the macro-policies and macro-consequences of these policies that determine opportunities across regions and sectors, and this in turn is the major determinant of HIs. Specific policies may be introduced at meso-level and micro-level to correct HIs, but, generally speaking, it is macro-developments that are most important; they can easily offset the effects of any specific policies.

The Situational Importance of Ethnicity and Religion in Ghana

Although ethnicity is an important identity marker in many countries, people have multiple identities relating to (among others things) ethnicity, religion, region of origin, occupation and gender. None of these identities exists in isolation and they are usually linked in intricate ways and sometimes overlap, partially or completely. This study investigates the hypothesis that religious and ethnic affiliations can be and are held concomitantly, but that the relative importance attached to a specific dimension cannot only vary between different groups but also fluctuate between different contexts. While religious identification may be ascriptively or prescriptively considered relatively more important in certain social settings, ethnic identification may take on prime importance in other contexts. This hypothesis is examined through an analysis of survey data of attitudes and perceptions towards identity in Ghana.

Horizontal Inequalities and Militancy: The Case of Nigeria’s Niger Delta

The upsurge of violent conflicts in the early 1990s unexpectedly animated academic and policy interest in social cohesion and in political stability. Given the political, humanitarian and economic costs of violent conflict, most studies on intra-state conflicts have focused on the causes of such violence (see Van de Goor et al., 1996). A huge range of perspectives has emerged in the field of conflict analysis, but the new political economy approach that focuses on the economic dimension of civil war has become particularly prominent (see Berdal and Malone, 2000; Collier and Hoeffler, 2000). The absence of superpower support for rebel groups has of necessity strengthened the tendency for rebellion to be self-financing (see Sherman and Ballentine, 2003). Scholars and policy-makers have explored the role of feasibility and opportunity costs at the onset of conflicts. The ‘greed’ of rebel leaders and of their recruits is considered to be the central explanatory variable, because a variety of factors — such as the availability of ‘lootable’ natural resources, low commodity prices and the presence of an army of unemployed youths — are shown to have a positive correlation with the onset of civil wars (see Le Billon, 2000; Humphreys and Weinstein, 2008; Nillesen and Verwimp, 2009). This argument triggered the so-called greed and grievance debates between scholars who focus on the economic interests of rebel leaders and combatants, and scholars who focus on the political, social, economic and cultural grievances of identity-based groups.