What explains the subnational variation in the riot escalation? Existing studies lay out different explanations ranging from reactionary responses to short-term events, such as repression, to grievances from structural socio-economic and political con...
What explains the subnational variation in the riot escalation? Existing studies lay out different explanations ranging from reactionary responses to short-term events, such as repression, to grievances from structural socio-economic and political conditions. Building on previous research, I argue that the individual grievances from corruption positively correlates on the escalation of riots, but that effect will be stronger with the presence of ethnic political exclusion. Ethnic political exclusion provides a focal point to translate individual grievances into group grievances. By altering incentives of ethnic group members to engage in contentious politics, this enables to overcome the collective action problem and facilitates mobilization into riots. Consequently, as ethnic group members are concentrated in certain areas within the country, this contributes to the uneven geographic pattern we see in the riot escalation. In logistic regression model using adm1-month level data covering 50 African countries from 1998 to 2019,
I find higher level of corruption correlates stronger with riot escalation in areas with ethnic political exclusion, but not in areas without. Interestingly, the baseline probability of riot escalation was higher in places with lower corruption without ethnic political exclusion. This relationship is driven by areas populated by ethnic groups with power-sharing agreements rather than areas populated by politically dominating ethnic groups, suggesting that within-power-sharing group dynamics might elevate the baseline probability. An illustrative case study of Algeria provides additional supporting evidence for the theory: ethnic political exclusion provides a focal point for mobilizing aggrieved coethnics living under corruption.