National Identification and Interpersonal Trust in Diverse Societies

It is taken as common wisdom among scholars and laymen alike that many of the political and economic problems of post-colonial states can be attributed to the lack of a unifying national identity. In Africa, the arbitrary division of the continent by colonial powers produced ethnically diverse countries, making the emergence of a unifying national identity difficult. As a consequence of this ethnic diversity, scholars have argued that low levels of trust and cooperation have hampered economic growth (Easterly and Levine, 1997; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005; Englebert, 2002) and ethnic bloc-voting and ethnic favoritism have perverted democratic institutions (Horowitz, 1985; Neuberger, 2000; Chandra, 2004).