ABSTRACT
This chapter tests the relational aspects of the model and challenges the notion that ethnic divisions are a prerequisite for personalist rule to emerge or to have a destructive impact. To this purpose, two case studies without salient ethnic political identities are chosen (The Gambia and Madagascar) and they are contrasted with a third (the Central African Republic – CAR), which has suffered intense inter-ethnic warfare. Before presenting the cases, the chapter introduces current theoretical approaches to ethnicity and identity, and explains how the ethnic competition model was compatible with the model. The cases show that the model’s dynamics apply when ethnic political identities are absent, and that in case of the CAR ethnic identities actually fragment and erupt more violently over time when regimes are personalist. This proves that personal rule cultivates ethnic politics and ethnic conflict and not the other way around.
