Eduardo Montero, University of Chicago

"Age Sets, Accountability, and the Balance of Power: Evidence from Villages in Rural Congo"

Abstract

Across Africa, village chiefs are the foundation of village-level politics. They are typically older and, as a consequence, less educated. This, along with concerns of despotism, has led to initiatives aimed at empowering younger individuals or creating committees that provide checks on the village chief. We study the consequences of these efforts, explicitly accounting for the fact that the effects of empowering younger cohorts is likely contingent on the underlying social structure of the village. Particularly relevant is that across Africa, age sets, which comprise initiation rituals for young men, are common. A documented consequence of age sets is that they generate a balance of power by creating a cohesive group of young men that provided a check on older political elites. Our study, working within a randomized intervention, shows that the effects of empowering young men and checking the power of the chief depends critically on the underlying social structure of the village – namely, whether age sets are present. In villages without age sets, empowering young men is ineffective and leads to more capture by the village elite. In villages with age sets, young men do indeed work more effectively together to provide more political oversight. However, the increased cohesion generates outcomes that are similar to the status quo. Thus, we find that in a gerontocratic setting such as ours, empowering young men can backfire, especially if social structures that unify young men – namely, age sets – are not present.

 Joint work with Sara Lowes, James Robinson, and Nathan Nunn.

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Contact person: Pablo Selaya