Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Comparative Political Studies
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Englebert, P.
Right arrow Articles by Carter, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Dismemberment and Suffocation

A Contribution to the Debate on African Boundaries

Pierre Englebert

Pomona College

Stacy Tarango

Pomona College

Matthew Carter

Claremont Graduate University

Do African countries suffer from their arbitrary boundaries? The authors test several hypotheses from the debate on this question. They differentiate, one by one, the degree of arbitrariness of African boundaries along two axes: the extent to which they partition preexisting political groupings (dismemberment) and the degree to which they bring together distinct precolonial political cultures (suffocation). They find that dismemberment is positively associated with international disputes and that suffocation magnifies the likelihood of civil wars, political instability, and secession attempts. The evidence appears to support claims that Africa has paid a substantial price for refusing to challenge some of the arbitrary boundaries it inherited from colonialism. The authors discuss the policy implications of their findings.

Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 35, No. 10, 1093-1118 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/001041402237944
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Party PoliticsHome page
M. Kuenzi and G. Lambright
Party Systems and Democratic Consolidation in Africa's Electoral Regimes
Party Politics, July 1, 2005; 11(4): 423 - 446.
[Abstract] [PDF]