The Impact of Colonial Ethinic Partitioning on Conflict and Nation-building in Africa

19世纪末将非洲分成正式殖民地的欧洲列强对当时非洲大陆的种族布局知之甚少。这导致许多非洲族裔群体在几个国家的边界上被分割开来，以及在一个国家内将不同的民族城市组合在一起。根据经验，这种分割与政治暴力、种族歧视和邻国军事干预的增加有关。我提出了一个理论模型，在超图上表示非洲大陆的种族，国家在超图上表示为边。我的目标是利用种族超图的结构特性来研究种族分割如何可能增加现代非洲国家不良结果的盛行，例如增加种族冲突和镇压。

The European powers that divided Africa into formal colonies in the late nineteenth century had very little knowledge of the ethnic layout of the continent at the time. This resulted in the partitioning of many African ethnic groups across the borders of several countries, as well as the grouping of disparate ethncities within a single country. This partitioning has been empirically associated with increased political violence, ethnic discrimination, and military interventions from neighbouring countries. I propose a theoretical model which represents the ethnicities of the African continent on a hypergraph, with countries being represented as edges on the hypergraph. I aim to use the structural properties of the ethnic hypergraph to study how ethnic partitioning might increase the prevalence of poor outcomes in modern African states such as increased ethnic conflict and repression.