Category Archives: Maps
Côte d’Ivoire’s Ethnic, Religious, and Geographical Divisions
Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) may no longer be physically divided, but the scars of its long conflict will linger for years to come. Even if public administration has returned to the north, cocoa producers need no longer export via neighboring countries, and the financial system has been restored, fear still stalks the countryside. Violence persists. Drivers need to avoid troubled areas. And a focus on prosecution of the losers instead of reconciliation ensures that resentment will continue to fester.
Although it was once West Africa’s best run country, Côte d’Ivoire has long suffered from deep ethnic and geographical inequities that made conflict much more likely. As the following maps show, these inequities can be traced back to colonial times, and to the policies followed by successive governments since independence. Unbalanced development is a recipe for trouble in countries divided into a number of large ethnic groups. (more…)
More on Africa, Conflict and Security, Elections, Fragile States, Identity, Maps, Poverty
Middle Eastern Religious Identities
What is the religious makeup of Middle Eastern countries? How does this affect the fragility of countries?
As Bernard Lewis wrote in The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, the region is made up of “old and deep-rooted identities” and that
not nationality, not citizenship, not descent, but religion, or more precisely membership of a religious community, is the ultimate determinant of identity.
Knowing the strength and geographical spread of these identities is crucial for identifying potential fault lines and devising measures to reduce their saliency. Stability in many places depends on ensuring political settlements are inclusive. Syria, Libya, Bahrain, Iraq, and Yemen are all struggling to find a proper balance in their deeply divided states.
This map shows detail from Egypt to Afghanistan and everything in between.
Bahrain: Analyzing Inequities Between Sunnis and Shiites
Bahrain is again in the news this week. The country and Saudi Arabia are discussing a closer political union—with the obvious aim of safeguarding Sunni control in a Shiite majority country. Meanwhile, Shiite activists burned tires and blocked roads in a protest against detention policies.
Bahrain’s crisis has many causes: the Middle East’s wider Shiite-Sunni rivalry; the region’s longstanding Persian-Arab rivalry; ideas released during the Arab Spring; rising political aspirations from years of watching satellite television.
But the key driver is the horizontal inequities (i.e. inequalities between culturally formed groups) that exacerbate the fault line between the Shiites and Sunnis within the kingdom. Shiite demands may not all be reasonable, but their relative disadvantage in economic, social, and political spheres feed dissatisfaction, and promote instability. Reducing at least some of these inequities is crucial to reducing the instability, which otherwise is likely to fester for years to come. (more…)
West Africa: Ethnic Divisions, State Fragility, and Regional Solutions
There has been a lot of bad news out of West Africa recently. Coup d’états have destabilized Mali and Guinea-Bissau. Nigeria has seen a series of terrorist attacks. Toureg rebels have conquered northern Mali and declared independence. Cote d’Ivoire is still recovering from its civil war. Meanwhile, there are reports about drug trafficking, al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and a food crisis in the making.
No region in the world has more fragile states than West Africa. The region, which consists of the fifteen countries stretching from Senegal to Nigeria, exemplifies the problems of state building when surrounded by other fragile states. Pint-sized, expensive markets keep most countries isolated from the dynamic changes globalization is bringing elsewhere. The region’s aggregate GDP is roughly the same as Norway’s—despite having over fifty times more people. Although Ghana and Senegal have made significant political and/or economic gains in recent years, most of the other states have been rocked by war, ethnic or religious clashes, political unrest, famine, or serious economic dislocation at various times over the past two decades. (more…)
How Myanmar (Burma)’s Ethnic Diversity Holds Back Democracy
The biggest problem facing Myanmar (Burma) today is not its lack of democracy, but its lack of peace. Since World War II, the country has experienced almost continuous conflict, with more sustained and diverse ethnic insurgencies than any other place in the world. This history has had devastating consequences for its politics, economy, and infrastructure. Introducing a set of policies that ends the insurgencies is a prerequisite for advancing democracy and development.
There are a number of things that differentiates Myanmar and its 60 million people from its far more successful Southeast Asian neighbors—and explain why its history is so different from theirs. (more…)
More on Conflict and Security, East Asia, Fragile States, Governance, Identity, Maps, South Asia
Best Links on Self-Declared State of Azawad in Mali
Tuareg rebels have declared the independence of the territory under their control in northern Mali, calling their country “Azawad.” Here are best links to information on the area available online: (more…)
Understanding Libya: The Role of Ethnic and Tribal Groups in Any Political Settlement
Getting rid of dictators is much easier than building a political order to replace them. This is especially true in countries with a limited sense of nationhood, as is the case in much of the Middle East. As a result, the Arab Spring has exposed the fragility of the Arab state.
Libya offers a cautionary tale. Muhammad Gaddafi’s reign has left it with arguably the weakest state institutions in the region, and a very limited sense of nationhood. The country’s tribes remain all-important, and given the armed militias that many now control the National Transitional Council’s (NTC) is going to struggle to exert its authority for an extended period of time. A potentially violent Salafi contingent may complicate matters even more.
As a start, it is important to understand as much as possible the ethnic and tribal divisions that divide the country. (more…)
Syria’s Ethnic and Religious Divisions
Syria's Religious Demography
Maps show how divided Syria is and how dangerous a breakdown in public authority is likely to be. (more…)
Is the Map of the Middle East About to Change?
Cross-posted from Global Dashboard.
If people in the Middle East could democratically choose what country they lived in, would they choose the one they are in now?
Amidst all the talk of an Arab Spring, the fragility of the Arab state is often forgotten.
Whereas developed countries are almost always the product of an organic, internally driven process, in the Middle East’s case, the countries are mostly the product of a British-French agreement made in 1916 (Sykes-Picot) that paid little attention to local sociopolitical realities. As a result, few possess the historical roots, social cohesion, and legitimacy necessary to nurture the complex institutions that are a prerequisite for development and democracy. On the contrary, most suffer from both sectarian divisions and weak government—the causes of state fragility.
(more…)
Nigeria’s Potential for Sectarian Conflict
Maps help explain Nigeria’s social divisions and potential for sectarian conflict.
The country has stark ethnic and religious divides:
The first map shows the country’s major ethnic groups. There are a number of major groups (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo) and many more smaller groups not listed. The country has over 250 in all.
The second map shows the country’s main religious divide. The areas where Sharia (a relatively mild version) has been adopted are all Muslim. They are all in the north. The south is mainly Christian. (There are still many who practice some form of indigenous religion, especially in the southwest, but these are in the minority.)
Now see how development has been spread across the country:
In the first map, the female literacy rate by state is listed. In the second map, the vaccination rate by state is listed. The south has much higher figures for both. It is richer, has more access to schools and health clinics, and has much stronger international ties (which produces more remittances and more NGO assistance). Stark inequities breed resentment in the Muslim north.
Now one more map:
Nigeria’s political divide roughly corresponds to its religious divide. In the 2011 election, a Christian southerner, incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan, trounced his main rival, a Muslim, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, 59 to 32 percent. Jonathan did especially well in the southeast, receiving more than ninety-five percent of the vote in nine states, and more than ninety-eight percent in six. Meanwhile, every state in the Sharia belt gave a majority of its votes to Buhari; almost every other state massively rejected him. (A third candidate, another Muslim, Nuhu Ribadu, did well in a few states in the southwest and midsection, but received only 5.4 percent of the vote nationally.)
Although fairly contested, this election broke an unwritten rule agreed to by the country’s elites, making strife more likely. Whereas the presidency (which controls massive sums of money) was supposed to rotate between northerners and southerners, now southerners have enjoyed a long period of rule. Muslim leader Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was supposed to serve two terms as president, but died in office before serving his first term. Jonathan, the vice president at the time, replaced him, gaining significant advantages in the 2011 election.
As Frances Stewart has documented, the chance of sectarian strife is greatest when an identity group feels economically, politically, and culturally excluded at the same time. The election of a southern Christian has made many in the north now feel that they have been reduced to second class status in at least two of these three areas. Whereas previously the north felt that they were at least partners in the political realm (compensating for the known differences in the economic sphere), now they are more apt to feel socially excluded within their own country.
Terrorism is certainly not a product of this sentiment, but the seeds from which it sprouts can be laid by such feelings. Nigeria will have to find a way to reduce the economic divisions and make northerners feel more like partners in the country’s political system if it hopes to avoid greater strife in the future.
More on Africa, Conflict and Security, Maps, Religion
