Regime Stability and the Persistence of Traditional Practices

Poyker, Michael

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of national institutions on the persistence of cultural norms and traditions. In particular, I examine why the harmful tradition of fe-male genital mutilation persists in certain African countries while in others it has been eradicated. I argue that people are more willing to abandon their cultural norms and traditions if they are confident that the government is durable enough to set up long-term replacements for them. I exploit the fact that ethnic groups in Africa were artificially partitioned by national borders and, using a country-ethnicity panel dataset spanning 23 countries from 1970 to 2013, I show that a one-standard-deviation larger increase in political regime durability leads to a 0.1-standard-deviation larger decline in the share of newly-circumcised women, conditional on the presence of an anti-FGM government policy.

Citation

Poyker, M. (2023). Regime Stability and the Persistence of Traditional Practices. Review of Economics and Statistics, 105(5), 1175-1190. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01078

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 8, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Aug 9, 2021
• Publication Date: 2023-09
• Deposit Date: Jun 29, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 9, 2021
• Journal: The Review of Economics and Statistics
• Print ISSN: 0034-6535
• Electronic ISSN: 1530-9142
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 105
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 1175-1190
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01078
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5746516
• Publisher URL: https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/doi/10.1162/rest_a_01078/106908/Regime-Stability-and-the-Persistence-of